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2020 Annual Report • Police Department • St. Anthony Village, Minnesota <br /> <br /> <br />29 | Page <br /> <br />completed the D.A.R.E. program, with a slight modification for their final class due to COVID- <br />19 restrictions. Restrictions did not allow 5th graders at St. Charles to complete the program in <br />2020. <br />CET also manages the social media accounts for the police department. We have accounts on <br />Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Social media has grown to become a major component of our <br />community engagement program. It allows us to reach a large segment of the community in a <br />timely manner. We use the accounts to inform the public of crime information, public safety <br />announcements, weather alerts, education on police work, requesting public assistance to <br />resolve crimes under investigation, seeking input from community members, and publishing <br />data of interest to the community. Recently, we’ve placed more focus on creating videos to <br />bring this material to the public in a more interesting, sometimes entertaining, way. It’s <br />required an evolving skill set that our officers are <br />continuing to acquire and polish to bring high <br />quality content to our community. All of our CET <br />Officers are developing this capability and are <br />expected to contribute to content offered to the <br />community. We’ve made some small investments in <br />technology and gear (such as phone apps and a <br />tablet) to help officers collaborate more easily and <br />produce material more quickly and efficiently. <br />The police department has recently revitalized our relationship with local cable television <br />studio, CTV. We intend to work to produce video content that will be broadcast over the CTV <br />cable channel and our social media outlets. The goal is to reach more community members and <br />make information from the police department more accessible. Our work with CTV began late <br />last year and content is expected to be available in 2021. <br />We have also launched a series of new content on video over our social media accounts focusing <br />on our Collaborative Reform work which the police department embarked on in 2017 through <br />the Department of Justice Collaborative Reform Initiative – Technical Assistance program (CRI- <br />TA). These videos were released at the end of 2020 and will continue into 2021, highlighting <br />continuing work on collaborative reform. The videos cover topics such as body worn cameras <br />(BWC), traffic stops, our partnership with the Northeast Youth and Family Services Community <br />Advocate program, and de-escalation and crisis intervention team (CIT) techniques. Additional <br />subjects are planned for 2021.