Tomball Police Department introduces Safe Exchange Zone

Tidwell said the zone has already received a lot of attention on the department’s Facebook page, with nearly 10,000 shares.

“We have had 1.4 million people look at the posting and many of those shares are from people other places, asking their police departments, ‘Why can’t you do this?’” Tidwell said.

Tomball Police Officer Jennifer Davis said Facebook users from as far as Louisiana are noticing Tomball’s initiative.

“We’ve gotten a very good response from [Klein, Magnolia and Waller residents],” Davis said. “We’ve also got a good response from people tagging other police departments in [the Facebook post], wanting them to initiate it in their area as far out as Louisiana.”

For now, Tomball is the only city in a 20-mile radius with a Safe Exchange Zone, so city officials are encouraging Harris County and surrounding residents to use the zone in Tomball.

Davis said cities that have implemented the zone in the Greater Houston area include Pearland and Jersey Village.

“This isn’t necessarily a new program, but it’s something that is nowhere in our area, so it’s something we wanted to bring to our area especially because Facebook groups are so popular and they meet all the time, locally, to try to exchange stuff,” Davis said. “We wanted to give people somewhere that they feel comfortable meeting at.”

Additionally, department officials encouraged individuals participating in online exchanges to take precautions when posting on social media by disabling location services and withholding personal information, such as home addresses and credit card numbers.