Minneapolis Police Department jumps onto Facebook

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Minnepolis Police Department's Facebook page

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune

Last update: November 11, 2009 - 11:43 PM

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The Minneapolis Police Department is looking for some fans.

That is, the department has just launched a Facebook page,following the lead of countless law enforcement agencies across the country.

These departments are scrambling, like many big institutions, to connect with people who are abandoning legacy communications media in favor of social networking sites.

"It's just another way to reach out to people and capture the ones we're missing -- kids, college students," said department spokesman Jesse Garcia. "The I-Pod generation, people who want their information here and now."

It's also stark acknowledgment that "not everyone watches the news or reads the newspaper any more," he said, meaning the department's traditional methods of reaching the public don't work as well as they once did.

So far, information on the department's site is pretty bare bones, with a handful of links to other sites.

Activity is starting to ramp up. Starting with 29 fans when the department began publicizing the site Tuesday, the number has passed 200 by this morning.

The St. Paul department jumped on the Facebook bandwagon before Minneapolis, just as Minneapolis beat St. Paul to the Nixel social network.

As of today, St. Paul's department had nearly 2,000 fans.

Both departments have a way to go in attracting eyeballs, considering the fact that an estimated 300 million-plus people have signed up on Facebook.

Take a look at the department's Facebook page.

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