Cops using e-mail to alert about crime
Date: July 27, 2006Source: boston.com
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The latest news on crime in Westborough soon may be just an e-mail away.
Police Chief Alan Gordon will present the Board of Selectmen next month with several possible ways of electronically alerting residents about local crime. One proposal is to sign up with a Minnesota company now running a pilot e-mail program in Boston.
``I think it's great," Gordon said. ``To me this is another avenue that would benefit us and the townspeople of Westborough."
Gordon is brainstorming with Officer Charles Dapolite, the administrator of the Police Department's website, and the town's technology systems staff about the choices he'll be presenting to the board on Aug. 15.
The idea was raised last week by Selectman George Thompson, who said he would like to see the board establish a subcommittee to suggest ways that other departments could be more interactive online.
``My intent was to prod them to think differently," Thompson said.
He was spurred on, he said, by a suspicious incident last month that led to a flood of sometimes incorrect e-mails being circulated among parents and parent groups. Thompson's sixth-grade son came home with a note about the incident a day after the e-mails were sent, he said.
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