SALISBURY TWP., Pa. — Equipment carried on a police duty belt can range from handcuffs, firearms and flashlights to pens, pencils and radios.
But for Salisbury Township Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio, there’s another piece of equipment that’s proven vital to performing his day-to-day duties: the keyboard.
- Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio is the voice behind the Salisbury Township Police Department's Facebook page
- Losagio uses humor to bring more attention to posts that highlight the department's traffic safety enforcement
- He said the ultimate goal is to promote road safety and mitigate injuries and fatalities, and they've seen a decrease in violations in some areas
Losagio is the creative force behind Facebook posts from the township police department.
And for the past few years, he’s used the page to interact and build relationships with the community in ways other police departments have not.
The out-of-the-box approach uses humor to foster connections and bridge a gap to reach people of all ages across the township and beyond.
“I looked at other departments’ posts before I started posting on ours. And not that there’s anything wrong with the other departments’ pages, but it’s just very formal. I wanted to write the post as if I was sitting at home after work one night and I was scrolling through Facebook"Salisbury Township Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio
For Losagio, finding the right time and place to land a punchline on Facebook came from a desire to move away from the more serious nature of police work.
“I looked at other departments’ posts before I started posting on ours. And not that there’s anything wrong with the other departments’ pages, but it’s just very formal. I wanted to write the post as if I was sitting at home after work one night and I was scrolling through Facebook,” he said.
The key, Losagio believed, was putting humor into the posts while still getting the message across.
“I was actually nervous about posting our first one a few years back, because it didn't look like any other department's post. I thought, ‘I'll see if I get in trouble for this.’ And people seemed to like it, the chief liked it. So it kind of took off from there.”
A unique approach
Lehigh Valley police departments have found their footing on social media in recent years, using Facebook to announce arrests, seek tips, recruit future officers and engage with the public faster and more efficiently.
The Allentown Police Department even records a monthly podcast on its page.
But Losagio, the coordinator for Salisbury’s traffic unit, jumped at the chance to do things a little differently.
“I thought I’d give it a shot, and at worst they don't like it so they’re going to kick me off the Facebook page. You know, don't let me do it. But I took a shot and it paid off, I guess, because people seem to like it.”Salisbury Township Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio
A post he made on Aug. 21, 2020, highlighted a driver clocked at 81 mph in a 40 mph zone where an aggressive driving checkpoint had been established.
“While no one thought that the vehicle traveling 74 mph in a 40 mph zone would be surpassed, the crowd jumped to their feet for the new kid in town, who out of nowhere clocked in at a jaw dropping 81 mph in the posted 40 mph zone," the post read.
"If he hadn’t hit his brakes as hard as he did when he saw the police car before being timed, he would have qualified for the elite Reckless Driving 90 mph qualifier next week!”
Losagio said the post was off-the-cuff.
“I thought I’d give it a shot, and at worst they don't like it so they’re going to kick me off the Facebook page. You know, don't let me do it. But I took a shot and it paid off, I guess, because people seem to like it.”
'People seem to like it'
The unique layout of the township, which includes more than 300 roads and is divided by busy Interstate 78, calls for several different types of traffic safety enforcement.
It also led to Losagio christening some of those details with names fit for NASCAR racing season: the Susquehanna Street 200, the Cedar Crest 600 and the Pike Avenue 500.
"I took a shot and it paid off, I guess, because people seem to like it.”Salisbury Township Police Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio
“Salisbury Township Police were out today timing racers,” a post on May 26 read.
“There was a lot of competition despite multiple 35 MPH speed limit signs and our department's obnoxiously large and bright 'Speed Ticket Zone' sign which was posted for vehicles entering the timing zone.”
The post got 256 likes and almost 100 other reactions, including 50 people who "loved" the post and 34 people who laughed at it.
“We have followers in Australia, so [the page] is all over the world," Losagio said. "I would say more than 99% of the people that read it have something nice to say or hit the ‘like’ button."
Occasionally, they get comments from readers and residents who have something negative to say, Losagio said. He responds to those, too.
“They can comment how they'd like, you know, but just about everybody seems to like the page," he said. "And you could tell that even by looking at the comments a lot of people seem to enjoy it.”
A model for community policing
"Our Facebook page is awesome," Chief Don Sabo said.
"And what it comes down to is community relations. The three hires that came with Officer Losagio back in 2001 came through a grant that specialized in community policing. We were showing the model of community policing and that has followed us throughout our careers.
"I think you'll see that as we interact with our residents on social media or in person, we're establishing good relationships and we're keeping good relationships, and we're solving the small problems so the big problems don't follow."
Sabo said the department takes each and every traffic complaint that comes in and will address it.
"When people's voices are heard and we act, they feel like we're taking care of their concerns," he said.
"We may not be able to solve the problem entirely, but we're listening and being proactive. We do get back to every single person that complains and as the complaints come in we update a spreadsheet."
Officers pour over that spreadsheet to look for data that sends them back out to problem areas to see what's going on.
"It's a quality-of-life issue and it's our community. You want those quality-of-life issues addressed and we absolutely want to see what we can resolve.
"We’re not out there to give tickets all the time. It’s prevention. It’s awareness. You have to humanize police officers and it shows we’re people too. So when you're out and about and people say, 'Oh, your Facebook page is awesome,' it shows it's definitely out there. I love to hear that feedback.”
Safety at the forefront
Losagio has worked for the Salisbury Township Police Department since November 2001 and said the posts invite community feedback and hold officers accountable to traffic safety concerns.
But there’s also a serious purpose behind them — to promote road safety and mitigate injuries and fatalities.
"Since we've been posting on our department's page, at different intersections we've noticed a decrease in those violations, it's actually getting harder to find people [running the sign] on certain residential streets that we've publicized."Salisbury Township Police Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio
The checkpoints operate through state-funded grants for which only certain police departments throughout Pennsylvania qualify. The selected departments, including Salisbury, are chosen after the state generates crash statistics.
Higher-crash roads call for more enforcement, Losagio said, and the checkpoints target the primary factors of most crashes, including speeding, running red lights and stop signs, tailgating and more.
With a particular focus on traffic safety on Facebook, Losagio said citations have dropped in some areas but are higher in others.
Last year, the department issued 1,072 traffic citations. So far in 2023, they're on track to match it, with 675 citations written. The average is about 40 citations per each enforcement detail, and the number one citation issued is for speeding.
"[The enforcement] seems to be working a lot on the side streets, residential roads," he said.
"So if have a four-way stop sign issue, and we have those in a township where people would run stop signs, a good one was over at Green Acres Drive and Flexer Avenue, near St. Thomas More Church.
"Now, people still run that stop sign. But two years ago, you could've sat there and looked at four or five stop sign violations an hour because people will go flying through there.
"Since we've been posting on our department's page, at different intersections we've noticed a decrease in those violations, it's actually getting harder to find people [running the sign] on certain residential streets that we've publicized."
"That's where our residents live, that's their houses or their kids on bikes or people walking their dogs.Salisbury Township Police Senior Patrol Officer Bryan Losagio
On major thoroughfares, such as South Pike Avenue, Losagio said, the numbers have remained "steady — but the purpose isn't to write tickets. It's to slow people down.
"If our presence or our signs slow somebody down that we don't have to stop for a ticket, then we accomplished what we set out to do. But these residential roadways, that's more of our primary focus.
"That's where our residents live, that's their houses or their kids on bikes or people walking their dogs.
"That's where we want to get the point across."
