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The Ocean Township Police Department will host their first tweet-along of a police patrol shift on the day before Thanksgiving, Wednesday Nov. 26, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., according to a news release from the department.

A tweet-along is a virtual ride-along that will communicate everything from the mundane to the serious over the course of a police shift. Social Media Officer Lieutenant Timothy Torchia will chronicle the day’s events as they occur and highlight incidents that develop while he rides with Officer Phil Jackson. The only exception to this will be incidents that are sensitive in nature or concern on-going confidential investigations.

The goal of the tweet-along is to broaden the department’s community outreach effort through social media outlets by having their followers experience what department officers do on a typical shift through the use of Twitter and Facebook. Followers will be able to interact by tweeting their questions and the department anticipates the tweet-along will help increase their number of followers. As of Thursday morning, the department’s Twitter feed, @OceanTwpPolice, has 2,028 followers.

The Ocean Township tweet-along will be the first by a Monmouth County Police Department, according to the release.

For over a year now Ocean police have successfully used social media platforms to communicate some of the township’s major police incidents and community events.

“[Torchia] is committed to connecting to our community and because of that we have made a name for ourselves in the social media world,” Chief Steven R. Peters said in the release. “I am very proud of what he has accomplished in the last year.”

The idea of a tweet-along is not new and has been used by a other police departments in NJ, as well as others around the country, the release stated.

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