Baltimore police can text you with news of shootings and arrests. You can see pictures of officers and their helicopters and horses on Facebook, where you can also add comments, good and bad, on the department's wall. You can even follow the department on Twitter.
And now, your city cops can send mug shots of wanted felons right to your cell phone.
It's a new social media adventure that began Monday and could be expanded if it proves useful and popular. Many police departments across the country are online in various ways, but few use instant communication to inform residents of breaking crime news. Many, including those in the suburbs around Baltimore, post press releases or announcements but not news of shootings in real time.
In some ways, it seems strange for city officials — who are sensitive to Baltimore's frequent ranking among the worst in crime categories such as homicide — to publicize even more crime.
Anthony Guglielmi, the department's chief spokesman, said he and the commissioner discussed that issue and concluded that the chief "is not here for public relations, he's here to make Baltimore safer."
City officials often lament the steady stream of crime news as they try to sell Baltimore's good points. Now, city police are texting the news of gun seizures and homicide arrests and sending out news of shootings and mug shots of bad guys.
Perception of crime means more than statistics. Here's a response to a police Facebook posting on a shooting this week: "Yet another thing I don't miss about Baltimore!!!" a reader wrote. In fact, shootings, both fatal and nonfatal, have dropped from 642 in the first six months of 2007 to 209 in the same period this year.
That is a number that city police talk about when they hype 20- and 30-year lows in crime figures. Of the disconnect between the reader's reaction to a single shooting and the reality of the stats, Guglielmi said, "The information has never been out there before, so people don't have anything to compare it with."
Sending out wanted photos and other breaking crime news is now viewed as crucial to good relations between the police and community.
"If you live in the city, you have a right to know if there is a shooting on your street and if your next door neighbor is wanted by the police," Guglielmi said. "We want to use social networking to partner with the community."
Other departments are trying to use the technology, albeit a bit differently. In Washington, police let business owners sign up for a texting service that quickly alerts them to nearby crimes such as armed robberies, in the hope that quick distribution of suspects' descriptions will lead to arrests.
Baltimore is starting out small. Each Monday, public affairs officers plan to send out four mug shots of suspects wanted by the Warrant Apprehension Task Force. The pictures will be sent via Nixle, a text-messaging service for which people can sign up. Police will also post the information on Twitter and Facebook.
With 40,000 suspects wanted for crimes in Baltimore, there is a vast pool from which police can select. Guglielmi said the department is starting with four photos at a time, both to test whether residents like the information and to not overwhelm their phones and texting plans. The text message will contain a link to a website that might be inaccessible for users of older phones.
The first set of photos sent out Monday consisted of two suspects wanted on robbery charges, another on a rape charge and the fourth in a burglary. Information about the crimes is purposely scant.
"We don't want to be that one agency that sends out frivolous and nonpertinent information that clogs up accounts so that people become disinterested," Guglielmi said.
The idea for sending mug shots to cell phones came out of a challenge by the mayor for city departments to use technology in ways never tried before. The Police Department has answered by issuing officers BlackBerrys that allow instant access to criminal records. And city officials want to add more surveillance cameras to watch over the streets.
Now, if you're wanted, your mug shot could end up on somebody's phone.