New Site Bridges Gap Between Community, Police Department

Police departments are designed to serve and protect the community.

In doing so, an open line of communication between police and residents is paramount, and that’s exactly what the Chester Township Police Department is striving to do.

In the new tech savvy web world, Lt. Ed Noonan knows how important online information is and has been for residents in the past. That’s why he, along with his fellow officers, created a new website to bridge the gap between the department and the town it serves. 

In the past, Noonan said, the website was a single page of information offering general numbers for the department. Now, the site offers direct contact information for individual officers, press releases regarding arrests in town, historical anecdotes and instruction on how to register a firearm, among other topics.

The site, which has been live since mid-August, was born out of community need, Noonan said.

“We always had residents asking ‘how can I thank an officer,’” Noonan said. “Now they can email one of our guys directly. We also wanted a website we could update ourselves when needed without using a webmaster. This will help us significantly if there’s a big storm or upcoming events.”

Of course if a resident has an emergency or complaint, calling 911 or the department dispatcher directly is still the best way to handle the situation, Noonan said.

The department routinely uses social media outlet Twitter to convey messaging, and now a link to their account can be found directly on the site’s homepage.

“We spent time looking around and talking to other departments, figuring out what’s useful and what we’d like to see (on the site),” Noonan said. “We wanted to make something more user-friendly for our residents.”

The Chester Township Police Department website can be found at ctpdnj.org.