Navigating the AI Revolution: Tools and Strategies for Law Enforcement PIOs – Exploring how artificial intelligence can revolutionize public information operations, from automated responses to predictive analytics in public engagement.
Engagement Beyond the Badge: Humanizing Law Enforcement on Social Media – Strategies for engagement that showcase the human side of police work.
Mastering PR Crisis Management in the Digital Age – Best practices and strategies for handling public relations crises through social media, including real-time monitoring, rapid response, and effective communication techniques to maintain public trust.
Navigating the Waves of Social Activism: Strategies for Law Enforcement Agencies – Managing relationships between law enforcement, social activists, and traditional media.
The Art of Storytelling: Telling Your Agency’s Story Through Social Media – Techniques for using stories to engage the community and build positive relationships.
Best Practices for Social Media Use in Crisis Situations – Using social media for crisis communication and management.
Building and Managing Your Department’s Social Media Presence – From setup to ongoing management: policies, procedures, and content strategies.
The Role of Video in Law Enforcement Public Relations – Leveraging live video, body-cam footage, and other visual content.
Social Media Analytics and Measuring Success – Tools and techniques for measuring the impact of your social media efforts.
Digital Reputation Management for Law Enforcement – Protecting and enhancing your department’s online reputation.
Engaging with the Community Through Social Media Events – Planning and executing virtual and in-person events that engage the community.
Social Media as a Tool for Recruitment and Retention – Innovative ways to use social media for recruiting officers and staff.
Leveraging Social Media for Investigations – How detectives can use social media for gathering intelligence and solving crimes.
Cyberstalking and Online Harassment: Investigation Techniques – Approaches to investigating online harassment and cyberstalking.
Social Media and Digital Forensics – Utilizing social media in the digital forensics toolkit.
Geo-location and Digital Tracking in Law Enforcement – How to use geo-location data from social media for investigations.
Identifying and Mitigating Online Threats – Techniques for spotting and addressing threats on social media.
Social Engineering and Law Enforcement – Understanding and defending against social engineering attacks.
Using Social Media for Gang Intelligence – Strategies for monitoring and infiltrating gang activity online.
Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for Law Enforcement – Tools and techniques for gathering intelligence from public online sources.
Privacy, Ethics, and Legal Considerations in Social Media Investigations – Navigating the legal landscape of social media use in investigations.
Real-Time Information Centers: Leveraging Social Media for Immediate Intel – Setting up and operating a real-time information center for live monitoring and intelligence gathering.
Reception: Meet SMILE Conference® sponsors, speakers and fellow delegates at the Marriott at Fair Oaks.
Check-in at registration desk
Chris Cognac
Shirley Ginwright
In December 2014, Fairfax County Virginia established the Communities of Trust Committee (COTC) to help build and enhance positive relationships between law enforcement and the communities they served. Ms. Ginwright, co-founder and previous chair of the COTC, will discuss the process of establishing COTC and its success in building trust and communities that work together.
Nicole Brown, Sergeant, Metropolitan Police Department, DC
SGT Nicole Brown will be providing a brief overview of the four under-served communities that the Special Liaison Branch serves. She will also provide detailed information on the LGBT community and hate crimes within the District of Columbia.
Meg Hawkins, PFC, Fairfax County Police
The Hidden in Plain Sight (HIPS) program is an interactive program for adults to be educated about the signs of risky behavior in teens and young adults.
The presentation and participation-oriented module helps parents identify and stop alcohol and substance abuse, as well as identify underlying associated issues like mental health problems and risky sexual behavior.
Eric Fredricks, Officer and Hodges, K9 Officer, Waterford, CT Police
Learn how specialized service/facility dogs can help bring comfort to officers and victims while also assisting in bringing law enforcement agencies and their communities together. The team of Officer Fredricks and Hodges will describe the many ways Hodges interacts and serves his community of Waterford, CT.
Kevin Davis, Chief of Police, Fairfax County Police
Kevin Davis currently serves as the 11th Police Chief for the Fairfax County Police Department – Virginia’s largest police agency and the nation’s 32nd largest. He led the Baltimore Police Department as its 39th Police Commissioner from 2015 to 2018, following a period of historic unrest and during the Department of Justice’s civil rights investigation. Throughout his career, Chief Davis has relied on a strong team of communicators and a commanding social media presence to build bridges and keep community members informed of important events. The Chief will detail his experiences and welcome attendees of the 13th annual SMILE Conference to Fairfax County.
Dustin Steinbeck, Director of Communications, Metropolitan Police Department, DC
The livestream video began with automatic gunfire erupting from a fifth floor apartment window just as parents were arriving for dismissal at a Northwest Washington, DC private school in April 2022. In the span of a couple minutes, the “lone wolf” had fired in excess of two hundred rounds. Learn how the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC successfully managed this incident through strategic social media engagement.
Tim Cotton, Lieutenant, Bangor Police Department
He will share his methods in a humorous and self-deprecating way and take questions about how gentle humor, lots of words, kind sarcasm, and rapport-building can help you positively engage and serve in your community. He has become known nationally as a poorly dressed example of how to do Facebook right. He is a frequent guest on Mike Rowe’s podcasts, an author, humorist, and a recently retired 34-year police officer. Please don’t get your hopes up, but there are some outstanding speakers on both ends of his presentation.
Twitter is designed to serve the public conversation and as law enforcement, you’re often a vital part of that conversation. So whether you’re brand new to the platform or you’ve been tweeting for years, this session will help you make the most of your Twitter presence by focusing on people, product, and policies. You’ll learn easy ways to optimize your tweets for engagement; tips on how to use Twitter’s products to reach your target audiences; and how to have healthy, safe conversations on Twitter using conversation controls.
Paul Walker, Sergeant, Abbotsford Police Department
A major flood hit on November 14th, 2021, in Abbotsford, BC, Canada, a community of 160,000 people just outside of Vancouver. Overnight, hundreds of people within the community needed to be evacuated from their homes as the water rose quickly. Canada’s main Highway, which runs through Abbotsford, was impassable, bringing the supply chain to a halt. During this time, getting information out to the community in real-time was crucial to prevent loss of life and to ensure the community had confidence in its emergency services. Sergeant Walker will walk through the importance and power of social media during this natural disaster, providing examples that assisted in keeping the public calm and having confidence in the communities emergency services, which ultimately contributed to no loss of life within the community.
KEYNOTE: Meaghan Gray
Social media just isn’t what it used to be. For seasoned communications professionals we remember the first days of social media. They were filled with feel-good stories, fun impromptu pics of police officers, and community members singing our praises. We did everything and anything to convince our organizations to be on social media. It was THE platform for engaging with the public. Then it changed and slowly our feeds – and everywhere else – have been overwhelmed with a toxicity not previously seen on social media. So, what’s next? Do we pivot or pack up? Join Meaghan as she leads an open discussion on how and why the social media environment has changed for police/public engagement and how we should navigate the future of police communications on social media.
Howard Ludwig, Assistant Director of Communications, Fairfax County Police
Former Chicago print reporter, Howard Ludwig, and MPO Tommy Thompson of the Fairfax County Police Department walk attendees through their process of producing an officer-involved shooting video using body camera footage and 911 calls for service. The step-by-step approach explores why certain decisions are made and gives other PIOs a roadmap to provide the public with a comprehensive look of a deadly-force incident.
Paul Walker, Abbotsford Police; Meaghan Gray, Toronto Police Association; Tim Cotton, Bangor Police
Some of our seasoned presenters will take the stage to have a discussion about managing events/crisis. Lessons learned from mistakes, key successes and everything in between.
Beidi Dong, Professor, George Mason University
Finding ways to improve police legitimacy and police-community relations has for long been an important social issue in the United States. It becomes particularly urgent following the killing of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020. The study investigated how police agencies (both individually and as an aggregate) leveraged Twitter to respond to the nationwide protests directed at the police and community reactions to such responses. The study found that police agencies tweeted more frequently in the immediate aftermath of the incident and posted an increased number of civil-unrest related tweets. The public showed a greater interest in engaging with law enforcement agencies following the incident. In addition, a great variability existed across agencies in their responses on Twitter. In conclusion, we suggested a few avenues for future practices on responsible and effective use of social media by police, while pointing out the potential challenges associated with such practices.
Sean Stephenson, Digital Services Manager, Calgary Policy
Learn about ways you can use video to tell your story. A discussion about camera, audio, and editing basics, as well as a comparative look at Production VS. The Do It Yourself.
Steve Peterson, Team Lead, Montgomery County Maryland Community Emergency Response Team
Best practices and lessons learned from multiple national award-winning social media initiatives by Montgomery County Maryland Fire & Rescue Service’s Community Emergency Response Team will be shared. These initiatives included the involvement of community members. The presentation will include suggestions on how similar community-public safety social media initiatives could be developed for law enforcement agencies.
Ray McCoy, Detective, Fairfax County Police and Browser K9 Officer
Together with K9 Browser, Detective McCoy will discuss the history of the Electronics Scent Detection (ESD) Canine Program in Fairfax County, to include an overall history of ESD Canines in the country and their use in criminal investigations in Fairfax County.
Laurie McCann, Constable, Large Canadian Police Service
One sure bet with social media is that no matter what you post, you’re likely to get negative responses, ‘cuz, as they say “Haters gonna hate”. Constable McCann will share her best advice on dealing with trolls.
KEYNOTE: Christian Quinn, Founder of Fulcrum Innovation
Violent crime, including gun violence, is surging in many communities. In addition, the threat of terrorism has grown increasingly complex, with recent attention shifting from international terrorism to homegrown violent extremism. In April 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community affirmed this assertion in its assessment of the threats posed to the United States. In a democratic society that values free speech, one can espouse views that may be perceived by most people to be immoral and distasteful, but still not necessarily be illegal. This creates a challenge for law enforcement who must differentiate between protected speech and that which incites violence or activities furthering criminal actions.
Emergent technology, such as artificial intelligence has the potential to be particularly valuable as policing democratic societies becomes increasingly more complex. This presentation will highlight technology solutions currently in use by law enforcement, and other emergent solutions that offer potential promise. The discussion will focus on key themes prevalent throughout North America and the U.K. regarding the challenges of balancing operational advantages with community concerns for privacy and the preservation of human rights when governance is ambiguous or otherwise subject to interpretation. Opportunities and successful strategies that are working in the rapidly evolving domain of public safety technology will be examined.
Amanda Paris, Detective and Kristen Sanders, Victim Advocate Specialist, Fairfax County Police
Evan Nicholas, Law Enforcement Outreach Lead, Tiktok
Want to learn more about TikTok, what the app can do and how you as an investigator can collaborate with them to foster safer communities? Join the TikTok team for an in-depth walkthrough where they will cover all the TikTok app’s features. You will learn, as investigators, how you can submit a legal process and what to expect in your returns. The presenters will also discuss the different TikTok teams and how they are seeking to proactively build stronger relationships with the law enforcement community. There will also be ample time for questions and discussion. This presentation is law enforcement sensitive. TikTok is a popular social media application that allows users to create and share short-form videos.
Law Enforcement based victim service providers often struggle with their roles as advocates for victims when the public’s right to know is often at battle with the needs of crime victims. It is imperative that departmental media relations and victim services divisions work together in a coordinated response. Victim services providers are valuable sources for agency PIOs and administrators because of their direct knowledge about victims’ rights, needs and concerns as well as their personal relationships with victims whom the agency services. Attendees will hear how the Fairfax County Police Department has developed policies and procedures when it comes to crimes victims and the media to include lessons learned.
Blake Albritton, Detective, Fairfax County Police
Chris Tucker, NDCAC
The NDCAC will provide an overview of the tools and resources they can provide to domestic Law Enforcement Agencies to assist with challenges associated with electronic communications.
The names of these presenters are Confidential
Christian Quinn, Founder of Fulcrum Innovation
Violent crime, including gun violence, is surging in many communities. In addition, the threat of terrorism has grown increasingly complex, with recent attention shifting from international terrorism to homegrown violent extremism. In April 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community affirmed this assertion in its assessment of the threats posed to the United States. In a democratic society that values free speech, one can espouse views that may be perceived by most people to be immoral and distasteful, but still not necessarily be illegal. This creates a challenge for law enforcement who must differentiate between protected speech and that which incites violence or activities furthering criminal actions.
Emergent technology, such as artificial intelligence has the potential to be particularly valuable as policing democratic societies becomes increasingly more complex. This presentation will highlight technology solutions currently in use by law enforcement, and other emergent solutions that offer potential promise. The discussion will focus on key themes prevalent throughout North America and the U.K. regarding the challenges of balancing operational advantages with community concerns for privacy and the preservation of human rights when governance is ambiguous or otherwise subject to interpretation. Opportunities and successful strategies that are working in the rapidly evolving domain of public safety technology will be examined.
Amanda Paris, Detective and Kristen Sanders, Victim Advocate Specialist, Fairfax County Police
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 1 in 6 women will be stalked in her lifetime. The use of technology, like GPS-trackers, may make it easier to commit the crime but it also leads to great evidence and can build strong stalking cases. Attendees will learn about the evolution of stalking to include how stalkers have found a friend in GPS tracking devices. Primarily used to terrify and stalk domestic violence victims, GPS tracking devices are ever evolving in today’s society and the trend has grown enormously throughout the years. We will dive into the investigations of these cases and learn the dynamics of locating the devices and how to successfully bring evidentiary items to court. GPS trackers place victims in a unique state of fear, stalking their every move without them even knowing. This training will also provide guidance on how law enforcement-based Victim Services can work closely with the victims from the onset of the crimes all the way through the court process. Attendees will learn the importance of using a victim centered approach to ensure victim safety, victim’s rights, and prosecution remain a top priority. A case study of lessons learned, best practices, and development in protocols will be examined as attendees learn how these devises give a stalker full access to victims .
Evan Nicholas, Law Enforcement Outreach Lead, Tiktok
Law Enforcement based victim service providers often struggle with their roles as advocates for victims when the public’s right to know is often at battle with the needs of crime victims. It is imperative that departmental media relations and victim services divisions work together in a coordinated response. Victim services providers are valuable sources for agency PIOs and administrators because of their direct knowledge about victims’ rights, needs and concerns as well as their personal relationships with victims whom the agency services. Attendees will hear how the Fairfax County Police Department has developed policies and procedures when it comes to crimes victims and the media to include lessons learned.
Blake Albritton, Detective, Fairfax County Police
Chris Tucker, NDCAC
The NDCAC will provide an overview of the tools and resources they can provide to domestic Law Enforcement Agencies to assist with challenges associated with electronic communications.
The names of these presenters are Confidential
The Gang Investigations Unit of the Fairfax County Police Department will discuss how gangs use social media to promote and carry out illegal activity, communicate between members and antagonize rivals. You will learn how to find, decipher, and collect this information in order to further investigations, assist with apprehensions and prosecute cases.
As Social Media and Internet commerce become more mainstream so does Cyber Crime and Digital Currencies.
The ability to communicate, plan and transact both financially and socially online has opened the world up, and essentially eliminated borders; and in some cases disregarded laws.
The expansion of ones online world has also created a strong concern over Internet Privacy. As such various areas have been developed that allow people to operate in a relatively private and secure manner, so as to avoid persecution from their individual countries, or just express themselves in a manner that is secure and private.
How as Law Enforcement do we investigate these areas? How do we penetrate these sites and attempt to identify individuals, while still working within our policies, procedures, and most importantly, the law?
This two-day intermediate-level course will challenge the attendees by forcing them to look for more creative and outside the box ways to extract the information required. All levels of investigations from front-line to major cases investigations will benefit from this training.
Laptops are required for this training.
Day 1 of this 2-day session will focus on OSINT and investigative techniques to maneuver the enhanced world of mobile technology and the increase of new ways to avoid detection.
Day 2 will examine the ever changing world of Cyber Crime, Digital Currency investigations and how to investigate these difficult and often relatively anonymous areas.
As Social Media and Internet commerce become more mainstream so does Cyber Crime and Digital Currencies.
The ability to communicate, plan and transact both financially and socially online has opened the world up, and essentially eliminated borders; and in some cases disregarded laws.
The expansion of ones online world has also created a strong concern over Internet Privacy. As such various areas have been developed that allow people to operate in a relatively private and secure manner, so as to avoid persecution from their individual countries, or just express themselves in a manner that is secure and private.
How as Law Enforcement do we investigate these areas? How do we penetrate these sites and attempt to identify individuals, while still working within our policies, procedures, and most importantly, the law?
This two-day intermediate-level course will challenge the attendees by forcing them to look for more creative and outside the box ways to extract the information required. All levels of investigations from front-line to major cases investigations will benefit from this training.
Laptops are required for this training.
Day 1 of this 2-day session will focus on OSINT and investigative techniques to maneuver the enhanced world of mobile technology and the increase of new ways to avoid detection.
Day 2 will examine the ever changing world of Cyber Crime, Digital Currency investigations and how to investigate these difficult and often relatively anonymous areas.
