SDPD Offers Residents Virtual Ride Along

It's known as a "ride-along" -- when ordinary citizens spend a few hours with a police officer in the patrol car simply observing what happens.

If you talk to someone who's been on a ride-along, most will tell you it's fairly interesting, from the gadgets inside of the car to the calls the officer goes on.

Well, the San Diego Police Department is innovating the ride-along.

The San Diego Police Department last week hosted it's first virtual ride-along giving the world a birds-eye view into the day of an officer via Twitter.

The Tweet-Along, as they called it, posted SDPD responses to select police calls for a full eight hours.

Those who followed the account say it gave them an inside view of police operations.  These are just few of the posts that were tweeted.

Hot Call!  Mira Mesa disturbance reported with a person pounding heavily on the door for the past five minutes.

@SDPD-  False alarm.  It was just someone asking to see a car for sale.

Skyline- call of a person threatening to kill someone, possibly under the influence of drugs.

Department officials are considering doing another virtual ride along in the future, mostly because it was such a great way for them to connect with community members.   It also helped them gain about 300 Twitter followers, they said, which was a record jump in such a short time frame.

The Assistant Chief of Police reportedly said the feedback has been positive, with many residents saying they had no idea how busy the SDPD is on a day to day basis.  It's a lot more fast paced then they'd expected.