New Web site links community, cops

Sonoma County sheriff’s Capt. Dave Edmonds hopes people will get more out of the department’s updated website than tracking police calls in real time.
“That’s a valuable aspect to the website, but we wouldn’t have said that’s the primary benefit of the Web site,” Edmonds said last week. “We essentially tried to come up with the means to establish a direct link between us and the community. … If there are issues, areas of concern that the public has, they can directly let us know about that, and we can respond in a very transparent way.”
Eighteen months and more than $8,000 in the making, the new site went public Aug. 25. Much of the behind-the-scenes work was done by tech-savvy law enforcement interns from Santa Rosa Junior College, and Edmonds said a lot of time was spent on research before the first line of code was written.
“We checked virtually every police Web site – hundreds if not thousands,” Edmonds said, adding that the results have drawn praise and professional interest from other police and sheriff’s departments. “We think this is a model that’s going to be popular.”
In addition to daily arrest logs, departmental news and a vast array of civilian crime-fighting tips, the site features a Community Information Exchange board for public comments and discussion.
And then there’s the “Live Events” window, a slightly edited version of the department’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system the California Highway Patrol has offered for years at http://cad.chp.ca.gov. Edmonds said that’s not uncommon – “There are more and more agencies that are putting out their CAD information as they have the capacity to do that” – but it involves a delicate balance.
“A more informed public is a more safe public, and for people to have an awareness of their community and what law enforcement is doing is a good thing,” Edmonds said. “But we also have to protect needs such as safety and privacy.”
For example, calls under the heading “Grand Theft” may list a street name – but those under “Stranded Motorist” won’t. Included with the county calls are those for Windsor and Sonoma. Both cities contract with the sheriff’s department for police services.
“It’s our hope that the public will see the site as informative, even entertaining, and a useful tool for them to stay aware,” Edmonds said. “We ask the public to log on and check it out for themselves.”
The website’s URL is http://www.sonomasheriff.org.