Civic engagement: Astoria police work to make community connections

By Jack Heffernan, The Daily Astorian
Original article HERE

Astoria Police Officer Jason Robinson, left, and Sgt. Chris McNeary chat with members of the community during the Coffee With A Cop event Wednesday at the Columbia Memorial Hospital and Wellness Pavilion Coffee Shop in Astoria. Coffee With A Cop is a national effort hosted by police departments aimed at building relationships with the community.

Two Astoria landmarks laid in ruins on a cloudy December day in 2010. Astoria Police Chief Brad Johnston, then a sergeant, took photos of what used to be Gunderson’s Cannery Cafe and the No. 10 Sixth Street building, both destroyed in a four-alarm fire.

Johnston decided to share the photos with the public, acting upon an idea he’d had for some time. Foregoing supervisor approval, he created a Facebook page, wrote a brief introductory post and shared the photos on the page.

More than six years later, Johnston and Detective Nicole Riley continue to post various updates on the Astoria Police Department Facebook page.

The department’s social media presence and events such as Coffee with a Cop are part of an ever-evolving effort to modernize public relations.

In the aftermath of a fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, a U.S. Department of Justice task force published a report with six pillars to modernizing police work. One of them, — called “building trust and legitimacy” — called for a culture of transparency, while another was specifically titled “technology and social media.”

“The business used to be pretty insulary,” Johnston said. “That’s not the business anymore. We need to be more transparent.”

 

Off sidewalks

The Police Department has been operating since Astoria’s incorporation in 1876. In the first few decades of its existence, officers would patrol sections of the city on foot. But as cars began to flood roads across the country, police cars progressively became a staple of police work.

Pulling officers off sidewalks and into cars, while significantly expediting response times, also meant they would spend less time conversing with the public, Deputy Chief Eric Halverson said.

“We have to figure out ways to fill that void,” Halverson said.

One such attempt is Coffee with a Cop, held multiple times each year since 2015. Residents are typically invited to go to a coffee shop, where officers will be waiting to answer any questions they may have.

Some questions center on larger national issues, such as officers’ thoughts on the Ferguson shooting and how police would handle a similar situation here. Others may revolve around smaller issues like how to report when someone leaves their garbage can in a neighbor’s driveway.

Officers, who tend to focus on tackling some of the major issues in the community, benefit from hearing that smaller problems are also important to residents, Halverson said.

But community relations can also put a strain on police departments in small towns such as Astoria. One of the department’s 16 deployable officers spends overtime hours planning, scheduling and publicizing meet-up programs such as Coffee with a Cop.

“We have to be selective in what we do,” Halverson said. “We ask our people to do a lot. They believe in these things. That’s why we’re able to make it work.”

 

Daily posts

In 2010, debates, including locally, still swirled about whether law enforcement agencies should create social media accounts. After Johnston shared the fire pictures, for instance, some of his supervisors questioned whether it was appropriate to continue the page.

“I think we won the argument,” a post from the page stated on the four-year anniversary of its founding.

Daily posts from the page include police logs, press releases, emergency alerts and media links and the occasional joke. Oftentimes the page serves as an alternative form of communication when certain pieces of information do not meet media outlets’ news threshold.

Johnston recalls a photo of an officer helping a stranded motorist change a tire — 332 likes and 49 comments — and a dashboard video of a jaywalker throwing a bag of heroin and oxycodone under a parked car — 323 likes and 83 comments — as some of the most popular posts.

The Facebook page tries to avoid police jargon so those who like it can follow along, Johnston said.

One of the decisions Johnston and others who posted to the account needed to make was whether to allow unedited comments. Though comments are allowed, they will delete those that are particularly nasty or advertise a product.

Commenters occasionally do criticize the department or police in general.

“When people are unnecessarily critical of something, the community tends to police itself,” Johnston said.

Due to the amount of time it takes to maintain the page and the increased negativity associated with Facebook — especially since the November election — Johnston and Riley have posted fewer non-news items lately, Johnston said.

The department does have a Twitter account, but it serves mainly as a quick access point for emergency alerts and police logs.

“Facebook is like standing in the town square and talking to your friend,” Johnston said. “Twitter is like standing in the town square and yelling at everyone.”

 

Long-term fixtures

The social media and Coffee with a Cop programs, along with the department’s annual nine-week Citizen Police Academy, appear to be long-term fixtures. But as has happened in the past, new realities may shift the way police conduct community outreach, Halverson said.

With a new administration overseeing the Department of Justice, national news may affect future conversations between Astoria Police and residents.

“We can’t change the national conversation in our own little corner of the northwest,” Johnston said. “But we can work to inform our residents.”