Video Sharing Site Offers Training Videos, Crime Footage for Police

Jul 9, 2008, By Jim McKay
Government Technology

While the security camera rolls, two police officers enter a
convenience store where a robbery is in progress. The officers miss
the shifty movements from the first man they see and fail to cover
each other when they move in to arrest another man hiding in the back.
Sensing an opportunity for a getaway, the first man pulls a gun from
under his T-shirt and shoots the officers. Both robbers then run out
the door.

Cover your partner. Don't ignore possible threats. This 10-year-old
video conveys the message better than any training room slideshow
could. BLUtube, a new online video sharing platform from San
Francisco-based PoliceOne.com, is helping to ensure more messages are
shared among the police officers who stand to learn from them.

"It sounds horrific, but if you break it down step by step, it's
actually incredibly important that it's there where officers can see
it," said Robert Dippell, PoliceOne's online director. "There are a
lot of videos that are useful as situational examples where something
went drastically wrong."

Today the site is fostering a library of law enforcement- related
videos, some for serious training and others, which are lighthearted,
uploaded by a handful of especially active members. The result is a
video site with a narrower focus than the most popular video sites.
BLUtube saves officers from typing "police" into a video search box
and wading through '80s rock music videos and popular anti-police bits
like the "Don't Tase Me, Bro" video.

Instead, BLUtube hosts traditional classroom training videos alongside
dashboard-camera footage, crime-related local TV news segments, and
reviews and promos for new products. PoliceOne also seeds the site
with original content, while building a library of survivor stories
and police narratives to serve its new video audience.

"We try to see what's going on in online technology and apply that to
our market," said PoliceOne CEO Alex Ford. "As YouTube launched and
became the phenomenon that it was, I started to think about how we can
apply that trend and match it with what law enforcement does on an
everyday basis."

The law enforcement community is a particularly apt target for online
video, Ford said, because of the wealth of footage available and the
importance of video during training. "It's been clear all along that
law enforcement officers are very much visual learners, and video is
an important component of their training," Ford said. "Most
incorporate video in their training presentations, and they show video
at roll call."

Dippell said BLUtube development began about a month before the site
went live in mid-October 2007. Working with a third-party company
(that Dippell declined to name), PoliceOne developers were able to get
the site running quickly. "The platform itself was pretty
straightforward, " Dippell said. "The main thing was solidifying the
sign-in functionality. "

Laying Down the Law
In applying the YouTube model to law enforcement videos, one
difference became clear early on: YouTube's extreme openness - relying
on users to police its content and flag inappropriate or
copyright-violating videos - wouldn't suit the content BLUtube would
receive. Casual "community policing" wouldn't fly among a community of
actual police.

There is plenty of public content on the site, but it's just a
fraction of the 1,200 videos uploaded since BLUtube launched last
year. The rest is accessible for free, but only to members who've
verified they are, in fact, law enforcement community members.

That verification process requires everyone signing on with BLUtube
and PoliceOne - the sites share a common membership - to enter a badge
number and contact number for the agency that employs them. A member
of PoliceOne's staff calls and confirms the applicant is a sworn
officer before granting access to the site.

PoliceOne has already built a member registry of 220,000 officers,
according to Dippell. In building the video platform, Dippell said it
was important to maintain the privacy of that community, since video
content might include sensitive police tactics.

In many cases, everyone benefits when information is opened to a
broader audience online. But when it comes to specific police tactics
- knowledge that's only effective when kept relatively private -
information sharing requires a delicate balance of openness and
discretion. The goal is to reach more law enforcement officials
without reaching potential criminals.

While BLUtube's privacy wall helps keep sensitive content from leaking
out, it also prevents certain comments from getting in. BLUtube's
typical viewer has a positive opinion of law enforcement, Dippell
said, and won't leave the provocative comments the YouTube melee feeds on.

"There's a certain kind of user for whom BLUtube serves as a kind of
escape," Dippell said. "Historically if you search YouTube or Google
Video, you're going to find stuff with comments that are anti-police -
that's the kind of sensationalistic stuff out there, so it tends to
rise to the top."

Dave Smith, PoliceOne's director of multimedia and seminars, a
Chicago-based law enforcement trainer, is an industry expert producing
original content for BLUtube. Smith has been spreading the word about
BLUtube at training sessions and conferences around the country.

"The startup has been intense, and some agencies are a little bit
hesitant," Smith explained. "A lot of them don't want their agencies
exposed to criticism."

Smith, who began producing police training videos in the early 1980s,
is working on a series of police narratives, filming officers as they
recall especially tough, and instructive, moments in their careers.
The stories will be shared on BLUtube and on sister site PoliceOne TV.

While some agencies are initially wary of granting access, Smith said,
PoliceOne's track record and its focus on working with people who
already have a presence in the police training industry is what
ultimately opens many doors.

"With my name recognition, it does help because once people know me,
they know where I'm coming from," he said.

Getting recognized can be tougher for Smith than other trainers, he
said, until he dons a pair of aviators and enthusiastically introduces
himself as his alter ego, "Buck Savage," a bumbling but helpful
Arizona State Trooper whose tongue-in-cheek (a la Dukes of Hazzard)
training tips have survived despite their campiness and early '80s
vintage. Incidentally "Buck Savage - Spare Tire" is one of BLUtube's
top featured videos.

New Recruits
Six months after launching BLUtube, 150 to 175 new users signed on to
PoliceOne every day, Dippell said. "BLUtube really energized a lot of
people," Dippell said. "There's a huge viral effect. We may have had
10 officers at a department who may have been on the site, but now
there are 100."

As with YouTube, the potential to build a community of users around
online video may prove to be its most notable feature. Ford sees a
need to bring police officers together into a secure online community
and is encouraged so far to see BLUtube doing that.

"Law enforcement really is a tight-knit community, so the training
component and the community component blend," he said.

Most user-contributed videos today are "dash cam" footage of traffic
stops or TV news segments. Ford wants to augment that collection with
video from professional trainers and slick minidocumentaries.

"BLUtube is really a first component," said Ford. "If it's a platform
for delivering video, then the next step is to create video that meets
training needs, and extend BLUtube so it becomes as much of a training
tool as it can be."

PoliceOne's umbrella company, Praetorian Group, oversees a number of
sites that deliver online content to other emergency workers. Since
launching PoliceOne and BLUtube, Dippell said Praetorian has rolled
out similar sites, including Fire Rescue 1 and EMS 1, believing
there's an audience in each of those fields that would welcome an
online community and a chance to share training tips.

Future projects at PoliceOne will likely be a result of the same
process that brought about BLUtube: watch what Internet users respond
to and adapt it to law enforcement needs. In partnership with Cisco
Systems, PoliceOne recently launched an online clearinghouse for
police grants, policegrantshelp. com, with guides and articles to help
with funding applications.

PoliceOne also is casting its net at a younger demographic with a new
Facebook group. "There are probably a few younger officers in the
academy now who might be interested in our newsletter," Dippell said.
"There are some officers who may not be on Facebook, or even approve
of Facebook, but it's just another way to get out there."