It was funny back in July when I wrote about how the Muncie, Indiana fire department had just discovered email, right? Small town, behind the times, ha ha ha.
But San Francisco is a whole other world. You’d think they’d have to be light years beyond Muncie
You’d be wrong.
The San Francisco police force is 2,400 officers strong and has 10 police stations, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. Recently, two (yes, TWO) of those stations got email and voice mail for the first time.
You read that right — at the end of 2009, only two of 10 San Francisco police stations have voice mail and email for each officer!
Of course, the cops are human too. According to the article
Shifting San Francisco’s police to the new technology has come with challenges. Some officers have had a tough time keeping track of their passwords; many already have to remember about a half-dozen passwords for other police programs. And some officers’ accounts have gotten bombarded with messages from residents, while others have seen only a trickle.
The article goes on to say that before this big push into the present, each SFPD station previously had ONE email address. If somebody had a message for a particular cop, it was posted on a (physical, probably cork) bulletin board. Or people sent them actual MAIL!
Now, I get that police departments existed just fine before email came along. But still, it seems like SUCH a useful tool for a city wide police department. Considering that just about every other small business or organization that has electricity has had email for years, it’s just shocking that the SFPD was this behind the times.
Now we just have to hope they can remember their passwords…
