The Renton Police Department is taking its crimefighting online in an attempt to better connect with residents through a new social media platform called Nextdoor.

Designed as a private social network to allow people within a specific areas to communicate with each other to help build stringer neighborhood connections, several of Renton’s neighborhoods have already become part of the service and are sharing information about crimes, resources and other local interests.

Only members of certain groups – arranged by neighborhood – receive the shared information.

The company also allows agencies like police departments to join so they can get information out to residents easier, something the Renton Police Department has taken them up on beginning in December.

“It’s another avenue for us to get information out,” Commander David Leibman said last week.

The department can also use the service to monitor crime trends, criminal activity, suspect and concerns of residents.

Leibman said the police department also cannot see neighborhood posts, but their posts are visible across the entire city, not just a single neighborhood.

Leibman said the department had already joined Facebook, but that is open to the public whereas Nextdoor gives them a tighter network to send and receive information.

“This is a much more intimate website,” he said. “We have the ability to put out the relevant information to the people who really want to hear it.”

So far, the department has shared a photo of an arson suspect, a notice of found property, car prowl prevention tips and news of a mail scam encountered by one of the officers, as well as a photo of the police making a toy donation to the Salvation Army.

Though only online for three weeks, Leibman said the response to the department’s page has been “enthusiastic” because of the immediate nature of the contact with the department.

“It’s 2015, people expect to get instant information,” he said. “We want to have that immediacy.”

The opening of the Nextdoor page is another step in increased public communication through social media and the department now has a dedicated social media person to handle Facebook, Twitter, Nextdoor and other online communication.

“We want to be open,” Leibman said. “We’re a public entity.”

For more information, visit www.nextdoor.com. Registration with the site is free.