Sheriff’s office launches Facebook page to keep residents informed
The Logan County Sheriff’s Office recently has rolled out a new communications tool that has proved useful both for quickly disseminating information to the public and receiving helpful tips from the community, officials said this week.
The agency launched a Facebook page last month, which can be located by simply searching “Logan County Sheriff’s Office” within Facebook.
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Corrections Officer Miriam Reames has kept the page active and up-to-date with a number of posts throughout each week. Also assisting with the effort is Andrea Rodenberger, LCSO investigative analyst, and Sgt. Ryan Furlong, agency communications supervisor, who respond to messages from the public and have helped the page to earn a “very responsive” rating of “typically replies within minutes.”
Logan County Sheriff Andrew J. Smith said the idea of an agency Facebook page had been tossed around for some time, but it took the coordinated efforts of these three individuals to make it a reality.
Corrections Officer Reames, who was hired in September to work at both the Logan County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center, stepped up and researched other law enforcement agencies’ pages to find out the types of posts “people want to see and respond to,” she said.
Then the plan was to “slowly and quietly” start the LCSO Facebook page and grow the site from there, an intention that changed at the beginning of March when four Riverside Schools students went missing, Sheriff Smith said.
An alert regarding the missing children ages 11-14 was posted to the agency’s Facebook page and the response from the public was immediate and “very successful,” the sheriff noted. The children were located the afternoon of March 5 after they were reported missing the previous evening.
“We received a lot of community volunteers right away to help with the search for the kids,” Sheriff Smith said. “Social media and the Riverside Schools’ automated call alert system helped us to get the word out.”
“It was helpful to put pictures of the children out there right away so that the public could help identify who we were looking for,” Ms. Rodenberger said.
In future instances of such breaking news alerts, inclement weather warnings or trends in crimes such as burglaries, the page will be utilized to get this pertinent information “out to the eyes and ears of our community,” the sheriff related.
But beyond just the criminal investigations and other notifications, the page will feature community education pieces, spotlights of LCSO employees and agency ventures, and highlight the work of partnering agencies and community events as well.
“You see so many negative posts all over Facebook, and I think people get tired of it,” Sgt. Furlong said. “We want to offer some positive information about what’s happening in our community and at our agency.
“We want to look at the education piece quite a bit, and we offered some safety tips with motorcycles on the road this spring,” the sheriff said. “In the fall, we’ll look at safety revolving around harvest time and farm equipment on the roads.”
Other recent posts compiled by Corrections Officer Reames have celebrated LCSO employees who have marked various anniversaries with the agency, along with a roadside litter clean-up effort conducted by deputies in the area of Gunntown Road and Township Road 200.
The page also offers information about the 2016 Logan County Law Enforcement Memorial, slated for 11 a.m. Saturday, May 7, at the Holland Theatre.
Visitors to the site might also notice the unique cover photo at the top of the page, which features Sheriff Fred Forester and several other deputies meeting with local children during the late 1950s in front of the former West Liberty School.
On the incoming end for the Facebook page, Ms. Rodenberger said she’s kept busy responding to messages from the page at all hours of the day.
“It gives people a way to share things with us that they might not think of otherwise,” Ms. Rodenberger said. “People always have their phones at their fingertips, so using social media is an easy way to contact us.”