The Sunshine Coast RCMP enjoys a positive relationship with the communities it serves, from Port Mellon to Earl’s Cove, and one of the ways Mounties look to strengthen that relationship in 2015 is by finding new ways of connecting with those communities.
Weekly incident report
Many residents of the Coast will rarely have any interaction with police, but still want to be aware of the crime trends in their community, as well as the proactive measures taken by the RCMP to keep our communities safe.
The RCMP currently releases a weekly incident report, both on their website and in the local papers, which gives a snapshot of some of the calls police responded to over the past week. Beginning next week, readers will see some changes in that report, including more details about some of the crimes reported on.
RCMP on Twitter!
RCMP on the Sunshine Coast have recently joined Twitter, which they believe will be a very useful tool for communicating urgent messages.
Residents on and off the Coast are encouraged to sign up for Twitter (Twitter.com), which is a free and simple process. Residents can then search for Sunshine Coast RCMP, click on the “Follow” button and choose to receive notifications to their email or their cell phone.
The RCMP will use Twitter to broadcast time-sensitive messages and real-time updates, such as when there is a highway closure due to a collision, if there is a high-risk missing person, or if there are any other messages relating to public safety. Using Twitter has the potential to reach a wide audience much quicker than traditional forms of media, and has already been successful in the Lower Mainland.
Question the Constable!
Have you ever wondered where RCMP officers go for training, how an officer gets to be a police dog-handler, or what to do if there’s a suspicious house in your neighbourhood?
The RCMP will be answering all sorts of questions in a new weekly feature called Question the Constable! Residents can email or “Tweet” their questions, and each week the Sunshine Coast RCMP will pick a question and submit an answer to it, both on their website, and in Coast Reporter. The names of those submitting questions will be kept anonymous. Look in next week’s paper for more details.
Website
The Sunshine Coast RCMP maintain their own website, where readers can find contact information, helpful links, and news stories about RCMP on the Sunshine Coast, including stories which may not appear in the local papers. Readers can go to sunshinecoast.rcmp.ca to learn more.
