Bratton To Launch Police Social Media Network

Photo courtesy of Bratton Technologies.Bill Bratton plans to launch the first comprehensive social media network for police officers later this year at the International Association of Police Chiefs annual conference.

Bratton, who has led police forces in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, told Reuters the network will help resource-strapped police agencies better share information. It will be called BlueLine.

"If you're a SWAT officer, it gives you the ability to find other SWAT officers in departments around the country and engage them, share best practices, talk about innovations," Bratton told Reuters.

Bratton hopes to recruit the country's approximately 800,000 active-duty officers into the network, he told PoliceMag.com. Each year as many as 80,000 new officers enter law enforcement, and the site won't replace Facebook, Twitter or other popular social websites, he said.

Screenshot courtesy of Bratton Technologies."It will be a supplement, because many of them will still go onto Facebook and Twitter for other socialization," Bratton said. "And I have no interest in investigations on this site. It will be a closed professional network."

BlueLine will be developed by Bratton Technologies, a for-profit company. He plans to sell apps to major police vendors, including the Detroit automakers, to finance the network.

BlueLine will be tested this summer by 100 officers in the LAPD, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and University of Southern California police force. Bratton plans to unveil it at the IACP conference in Philadelphia in October.