Facebook has funded the salary of a Menlo Park police officer and the construction of a police substation near its headquarters. Experts say such arrangements can lead to potential conflicts of interest. WSJ's Zusha Elinson reports. Photo: Craig Lee for The Wall Street Journal
MENLO PARK, Calif.—On a recent afternoon, police officer Mary Ferguson visited the home of a teenager in this Silicon Valley suburb who had been missing school and was on probation.
Officer Ferguson approached the boy's father as part of her rounds and asked if he checks the teen's Facebook FB +0.29% page to make sure he's "on the up and up." When the man said he didn't, the officer assured him she did—thanks to a Facebook account she uses as part of her job that doesn't reveal her true identity. "I'll keep my eye on him," she said.
Officer Ferguson, 34 years old, is sometimes called "The Facebook Cop," but it isn't for her savvy use of social media. It is because her salary and benefits are paid entirely by Facebook Inc., which is based in this well-off city of 32,000.
In an unusual deal, the social-networking giant has agreed to fund a $194,000-a-year police position, including salary and benefits. The position is controlled by Menlo Park and the primary duties of the job are to keep children in school, work with juvenile offenders, and help large local businesses such as Facebook plan for emergencies like fires, earthquakes or violent intruders.
Company-funded police officers aren't new, but neither are they widespread. In the 1990s, tech companies helped pay for and equip computer-crime task forces at local police departments. Companies and homeowners associations often hire off-duty officers for security. Shopping malls frequently share the cost of an officer to patrol and deal with theft, said Christopher Boyd, president of the California Police Chiefs Association. A mall in Citrus Heights, Calif., where Mr. Boyd is chief, has such an arrangement.
Craig Lee for The Wall Street Journal
For their part, Facebook and Menlo Park leaders say the agreement is a no-strings-attached gift. But police ethicists are concerned about possible conflicts of interest. And some longtime residents say it isn't a wholly altruistic endowment, being part of a larger effort to clean up Menlo Park's historically lower-income Belle Haven neighborhood, where crime is more prevalent and where Facebook is expanding its sprawling headquarters.
Facebook, the largest employer in town with more than 3,500 local workers, says it doesn't expect special treatment. The company has its own security team, headed by a former Secret Service agent, Facebook said. "We just identified a need in the community," said Genevieve Grdina, a company spokeswoman. "It's not the 'Facebook officer'; it's the officer for the whole community."
The company also helped pay for a new police substation in Belle Haven. Facebook put up about $200,000 toward its design and construction, and is paying the bulk of the $44,400 annual rent for the location, which houses a handful of officers and staff, according to the city and the company. The contributions come as the Facebook expands its campus and works with a developer to build 394 housing units within walking distance where employees can live.
"Facebook moved into a part of town that was blighted, that was hurting," said Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller. "One of the first things we're seeing is this public safety net coming down to protect everyone," he added, referencing the new police substation and the officer.
There are some Facebook-specific tasks that fall to the city's police department. About 12 times a month, Menlo Park detectives assist out-of-state police with search warrants for information about Facebook users, said Commander Dave Bertini.
When Facebook was preparing to move to Menlo Park from nearby Palo Alto in 2011, the police department anticipated it would need to hire an additional detective to handle requests for out-of-state search warrants for information stored on the company's servers, but that never occurred, he said.
Mr. Mueller says he believes more cities will look to create deals like the one his city has with Facebook. But some police ethics experts are leery.
"That raises some potential conflicts that, if I was the chief, I am not sure I'd want to wrestle with," said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal-justice professor at University of South Carolina. "What do you tell your officers about how to treat people who work at Facebook?"
Matt Henry, a lifelong Belle Haven resident and past president of an area neighborhood association, said he believes the arrangement is more about what Facebook needs. "They're a little nervous about being over here," he said. "They look at the crime stats—they want everything to be cleaned up, so they said, 'Let's put the police nearby.' "
Mayor Mueller disputes that suggestion. "Anyone who has the perception that Facebook is trying to protect themselves really doesn't understand the situation," he said. "That place is a fortress—they don't need the Menlo Park Police to protect them."
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And Facebook has been a relatively quiet neighbor since it moved in 2½ years ago, said Commander Bertini.
Records show that aside from hundreds of 911 misdials coming from the Facebook campus (caused by employees dialing 9 to reach an outside line), there have been 81 incidents recorded by police at the Facebook campus since the beginning of 2012.
These included a voice mail left on an answering machine from someone stating they were "going to beat up" Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg ; an early-morning report of shots fired that turned out to be nearby duck hunters; and a variety of trespassers, including one who wanted to have his Facebook account deactivated and one carrying a sign reading "Cheryl Sandburg," a misspelled reference to Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
At the home of the truant teen, Officer Ferguson listened as the boy's father, Efrain Garcia, talked about the difficulties of keeping his son in line. She offered some advice on summer programs and said she'd look into an older guy with whom his son had been hanging around late at night.
Mr. Garcia seemed satisfied with her plan to aid him. Informed that Facebook was paying her salary, he said, "I think it's a good idea—it's what the community needs."