$10,000,000 is currently up for grabs through a grant program to increase school safety and prevent school violence through the STOP School Violence Grant Program! Specifically mentioned in the program description is the goal to:
Develop and implement threat assessment and/or intervention teams to operate technology solutions such as anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines, and websites. These teams must coordinate with law enforcement agencies and school personnel.
Please reach out to us immediately if you are interested in applying so that we can assist you to the best of our abilities. The application deadline is March 3rd, 2020 with an implementation date of October 1st, 2020.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office is using new technology to make it easier for the community to send in tips on crimes.
With the click of a button a tipster helped culminate weeks of investigation leading to the arrest of a man for selling methamphetamine. It’s a crime the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office would likely never know about if it weren’t for their tip411 program. It’s way to send a tip anonymously through a cell phone or computer.
“With tip411, it’s all done digitally,” Williamson County Sheriff’s Office investigator Paul Lusk said. “You can do it through the county website, our Facebook page, through text message.”
Anyone with a tip can text tip411 (847411) using the keyword ‘tipwcso’ before texting whatever tip the user wants to send. Tipsters can also use an app through iOS and Android, WilliamsonCo Sheriff.
“All of the information is filtered out as far as identifying information and we receive the tip almost instantaneously,” Lusk said. “There’s no way for us to subpoena or court order tip411 to give us the information of who sent the tip in.”
An investigator may respond back to the message looking for more information, but Lusk says they have no way of actually identifying who wrote to them.
They’ve received about 300 tips since the program began about two years ago. Lusk says roughly half of them have led to an arrest. Tipsters can still call Crime Stoppers or departments directly, but tip411 allows for complete anonymity.
“A lot of times people who send in tips are friends and family of the people that they’re tipping about or giving information about and they don’t want to be the black sheep of the family,” Lusk said. “They don’t want to have retaliation.”
Lusk says most tips have been drug related, but hopes more messages will lead to arrests on all sorts of crimes they may never know about without the community’s help.
“We have limited staff. We’re actually shorthanded right now. If we only have six or seven guys covering the entire county, they can patrol around and see what they see going through neighborhoods and try to proactively stop crime, but to us it’s more important for the neighbors, coworkers, just the community in general to be able to see stuff,” Lusk said. “They see it 24 hours a day. They live with it and there’s no way for us to know that some of that stuff is going on unless it’s reported and we feel like this is a safe way to do it.”
Anyone who is in an emergency should call 911. The Williamson County Emergency Management Agency is still working on a county wide program for texting 911 they hope to implement in summer 2020.
Lusk also reminded the community to save the tip411 for crimes because they investigate every tip that comes in seriously.
Tips received through the Johnstown Police Department’s new tip411 smartphone application helped lead to the apprehension of a city man who was wanted on several outstanding warrants, police Capt. Chad Miller wrote in an email Friday.
“This is just one example of how tip411 is helping us locate wanted individuals and get them off the streets,” Miller wrote. “Tip411 is also helping us locate drug trafficking areas in and out of the city that we were previously unaware of.”
Miller wrote that the police department received several tips about Jamie Blough, 47, of the Woodvale section of Johnstown, who was arrested Friday.
A new app on your smartphone will help Columbia Falls residents and police work closer together.
The Columbia Falls Police Department is partnering with tip411to create a new Columbia Falls PD app.
The app will allow Columbia Falls residents to connect with police, find information and submit anonymous tips from their smartphone. Columbia Falls Police Chief Clint Peters says the apps are available for both iPhone and Android and is free and easy to download.
“If you have an apple phone or an android it doesn’t matter the app is there,” said Peters. “If you can’t find it simply just search Columbia Falls Police Department, hit search, it’s the … (first) thing that pops up, it has our badge on there easily identifiable, download it and you can see the tips and you can see how you to communicate back and forth once you gave a tip.”
Based out of Minnesota, tip411 have been in business for more than 20 years, serving 1,800 jurisdictions across the country. This includes law enforcement, schools and the United States Air Force.
Tip411 account manager Logan Buhr said the app allows residents to remain totally anonymous while providing police tips. “Have a two-way conversation with law enforcement officials while protecting their identity and provide what information they have to help make their community safer.”
Chief Peters says the department has been working to implement and train for the new app. He added the simple to use smart phone application allows younger generations easier access to communicate with law enforcement.
“This gives people an opportunity to reach out. We’re reaching out through media … already. This is just another avenue that maybe we can get that younger generation, that this is how they communicate, this is how we figure we can best reach them,” said Peters.
Anonymous web tips can also be submitted through Columbia Falls Police Departments website. Residents without a smartphone can share information with police by sending an anonymous text tip via their cell phone by texting keyword CFPD — and their tip — to 847411.
