Methuen police tip alert system
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Police department rolls out new tip alert system

The police department and Mayor Stephen Zanni are launching a new tip alert system to help improve public safety in the city.

The system, tip411, is an interactive way to keep the community connected and informed through email, text message and online public safety alerts. It will also allow the public to report crimes and other suspicious activity directly to police by sending anonymous text messages or submitting tips online or through the Methuen Police Department app.

“In a society where technology and media are so prominent in all aspects of our lives, we believe this new app will only help to increase our connection with our community members,” Chief Joseph Solomon said. “We have worked hard to notify, educate and respond to our citizens in all regards, and tip411 is another resource that helps facilitate this process.”

To use the system, residents can register to receive alerts from the police department via email or text message by signing up online. Or, they can download the Methuen Police Department app. It is through this app, developed by tip411, that residents can share anonymous tips with police and officers and respond back.

Read the full story from the Eagle Tribune

DTPD Tip app
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Get a Custom Agency Smartphone App!

Step up to a tip411 Pro subscription to get access to all of the great features of tip411 Bundle, plus the new tip411 Mobile app. This innovate app allows you to create a customized, branded app for Android/iPhone that allows residents to send anonymous tips, access agency alerts, social media channels, important information, and more to help fight crime. Contact us for a quick demo.

“We now have tip411 Pro and our own smartphone app that allows us to not only receive tips, but push out information specific to particular crimes, allows us to share crime mapping information, links to important agency information, as well as our social media accounts.” – Major David Dalton, Clearwater, Florida Police

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Expand Your Coverage

While tip411 should never be a replacement for calling 911, many agencies have had success involving their emergency dispatchers in checking and responding to tips and allowing for 24/7 coverage.

“We made a decision as an organization that we wanted give virtual real time feedback to any received tips. That’s when we gave additional responsibility to our Communications Center Supervisors to monitor the system after hours and respond to tips when needed, while the Crime Analysis Unit remains in charge of responding to tips during business hours and cataloging and assigning each received tip.” – Major David Dalton, Clearwater, Florida Police

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Promote, Promote, Promote!

The most successful agencies are those who hold press conferences to launch their system, regularly send alerts, hang posters around their community, distribute business cards with their tip411 information on it, and more. Need help? Reach out to our Public Relations Director for tips. 

“We try to feature it prominently on our website and we push it out as I said through Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media. In every community alert that we send, we include our tip411 information. We put it on flyers, on crime alerts – just about anything we send to the public.” – Major David Dalton, Clearwater, Florida Police

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Use Social Media as a Force Multiplier

For agencies with alerting capability, did you know you can connect your tip411 system to Facebook and Twitter to have alerts post automatically to your followers without any extra work? You can also have anonymous tip forms connected to any agency Facebook page so your followers can share tips directly from social media without having to visit your website. Interested? Contact Gordy Christian today and he’ll help set you up at no extra cost.

“We use it in virtually every instance in which we ask for the public’s assistance. Even when we use another social media platforms, like Twitter, to shares suspect images, videos, etc., we ask followers to submit information using tip411. It doesn’t matter to our agency if it is a routine retail theft case or a murder investigation; we include that as a resource to the public.” – Major David Dalton, Clearwater, Florida Police