The Alhambra Police Department made a landmark move today in being the first in the nation to launch a Weibo account—the Chinese form of Twitter—as part of an initiative to reach out to Chinese immigrants.
Since Alhambra has a 52.9 percent Asian population, according to the U.S. Census, police chief Mark Yokoyama hopes this move will make his department more progressive in engaging with its community.
"I feel that we’re not reaching out to them as we should and, as police chief, that’s a critical component of public safety,” Yokoyama told Pasadena Star News. "There is a segment of the population that really doesn’t want to call the police, but they feel comfortable sending a message."
The popular Chinese microblogging site has more than 500 million followers, according to Alhambra Source. This is the next social media outreach move for Yokoyama, as he launched a Facebook page back for his police department back in January. He told Pasadena Star News that there have been a handful of crimes that have been solved since launching the social media page, which has over 1,600 followers now.
