Police officers are just like us: They drink bottled water. They have dogs. They even tweet.
Starting Friday at 8 a.m., cops around the world will take part in a 24-hour-tweet-a-thon to raise their social media profiles. (Of course, with all the different time zones participating, the "day" will be more like 43 hours. But this is a news website, not a calculus class.)
The virtual ridealong is organized by ConnectedCOPS.net, which bills itself as "law enforcement's social partner on the web."
Here's a map of all the participating agencies:
View Global Police Tweet-a-thon participants 2013 in a larger map
According to the map, seven Florida law enforcement agencies plan to join the tweet-up, including Tampa Police Department. Officer Jason Lindemann will sign on at 8 a.m., Officer Derek Lang will patrol the midnight "tweet beat," as TPD put it in a press release, and Chief Jane Castor will tweet from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Follow along on Twitter at #POLTWT or @TampaPD.
TPD's participating in the social media shindig comes as no surprise. We'd expect nothing less from the officers who spoofed Call Me Maybe...
... and even did the Harlem Shake.