The Sanford Police Department is turning to a popular form of social media to show people exactly what it is like to protect and serve.

  • Sanford Police Dept. tweets while patrolling neighborhoods
  • Photos, videos show what the days in the lives of officers are like

Through the Twitter hashtag #TweetFromTheBeat, officers are giving their community a virtual ride-along while they are on duty.

On Monday morning, Sanford police had to respond to numerous calls, mostly routine. One of them involved a report from a gas station clerk about a suspicious person who appeared to be sleeping near a dumpster at the store.

Just a few minutes after officers arrived, they tweeted out the person was gone. Officers say the man was likely homeless.

“It’s not always high-speed pursuits. Often our calls for service are assisting citizens in different aspects of their days, whether their car is broke down on the side of the road,” said officer Bianca Gillett.

Later in the day, a man ran from officers during a traffic stop. He was eventually caught and the moment was immediately caught on Sanford police’s Twitter feed.


“We want to try to reach out and get the most viewers and get to the most people, the way they’re using it, Twitter and Facebook and all the social media,” said officer Jordan Buchanan.

Officers tweet in two different teams. The more tweets, the better, they say.

“The more tweets each team is able to tweet out is more information we’re able to push out to our residents, the more our residents are able to see what’s happening in their community in real time,” said Gillett.