Crime Solvers Tip411

Fairfax County Crime Solvers Partners with tip411

Fairfax County Crime Solvers has partnered with tip411 to introduce a new and innovative crime-fighting tool.

Through a partnership with tip411, information can now be shared anonymously with police via a free smartphone app, text message, or a web tip form.

Fairfax County Crime Solvers encourages anyone with a smartphone to download their free Fairfax Co Crime Solvers app for iPhone/Android or to text anonymous tips to 847411 using keyword FCCS.

Residents should submit tips about crimes, drugs, bullying, threats, suspicious activity, and more to help police protect students and community members of all ages.

Issues requiring immediate public safety attention should always be reported directly police by calling 9-1-1.

More information about Fairfax County Crime Solvers can be found at www.fairfaxcrimesolvers.org

Lino Lakes Tip411 Anonymous Tips

Lino Lakes Police debut new app on Night to Unite

Residents now have another way to stay informed about what is going on in their community and share information with law enforcement while remaining anonymous.

Just in time for Night to Unite Aug. 6, the Lino Lakes Public Safety Department (LLPSD) announced it had partnered with Tip411 so residents can have a multitude of channels to communicate with law enforcement — all anonymously.

“For the residents, it is just one more opportunity for them to partner with us and provide us information,” Public Safety Director John Swenson said. “For us, it is providing another opportunity to get information that can help us further make our community safe and it allows us to do some targeted communications and continue to work to find efficiencies for social media use.”

Tip411 is a St. Paul company that has been around since 2000. The company works with law enforcement, schools and community groups to implement community notification systems including crime alerts, anonymous text tips, smartphone apps and social media pushes. Tip411 currently works with 1,800 communities across 47 states. Some of its largest customers include the U.S. Air Force and the cities of San Francisco, San Antonio, Minneapolis and Duluth.

Lino Lakes resident Tony Stano, who has been a sales director with Tip411for almost six years, said over the past several years he has periodically checked in with city officials to see if there was interest in joining the Tip411 platform. “Because it was my hometown, I was particularly passionate about seeing it through to fruition or to have the door shut,” Stano explained. The department and the company started planning for the launch a year ago.

Swenson said although the technology is something his department had been interested in for a long time, because of the department’s size there were only so many resources it could manage.

“The thing that really tipped it for us and why we decided to go with it, was the ability to create targeted zones of our city so we could do communications direct to areas,” Swenson explained. “For example, if we had something going on in northwest corner of our city related to theft from vehicles, we could send it out to that area of the city, versus broadcasting it throughout. We can be specific about our messaging geographically, which we have not had an ability to do prior to this application.”

Through Tip411, the LLPSD can send out alerts through its custom branded mobile app (available for iPhone and Android), email, text and social media. Residents are also able to send anonymous tips via all those channels. Through the app and on the website, residents can also submit tips about specific pins/incidents on the community crime map.

“One of the main benefits of Tip411 is that any tip that is sent in starts at two-way conversation with law enforcement and the tipster remains anonymous 100% of the time. For every tip that LLPSD receives, they will have the opportunity to respond to the tip or ask questions to develop information before ever having to deploy a physical resource if necessary,” Stano said. “So instead of an officer chasing down a two-sentence tip that they really don’t know about, they can save time and communicate over our service. For the public, it is a safe space to get involved without the fear of retribution or retaliation.”

The mobile app also enables residents to attach videos and or pictures to their tips. “If LLPSD pushes out an alert that they are looking for a suspect in a red car, you could be sitting at Applebees eating your rib tips and see that car in the parking lot. Right from your mobile device in real time, you can submit a tip about that alert,” Stano said.

As always, residents should call 911 in an emergency. “It is very important that everybody understands this is a mechanism for people to communicate with us about a non-emergency event, or a not-in-progress event,” Swenson urged. “If you need to see a police officer, or you see something suspicious in your neighborhood and you want a police response, that has to go through our dispatch center because these platforms are not monitored on an ongoing basis.”

By downloading the app, you opt in to getting alerts through the app. If you want alerts via email or text, you have to sign up online on the city’s website. (Go to the public safety tab, click police division, programs & initiatives and then Tip411.) Residents are encouraged to sign up for the particular zone they live in, although they are also able to receive all alerts across the city if they so choose. For questions, contact LLPSD at 651-982-2323.

Read the full story from Quad Community Press

Ashland City police cruiser

Crime reporting app Tip411 coming soon to Ashland City

Ashland City residents will soon be able to submit anonymous tips and receive communications from the local police department using an app.

The Ashland City Council approved the Tip411 contract at its meeting Tuesday, locking in a three-year contract at $4,800, covered in the police department’s budget, Chief Marc Coulon said at the meeting.

Tip411 is used in more than 1,400 communities nationwide, according to the web-based tool’s website. That includes local, county, state and federal agencies, and even schools.

Tip411 “helps agencies engage community members of all ages by enabling anyone with a cell phone to submit tips via a smartphone app or text anonymous tips that can be responded to in real time by authorized personnel in the agency or organization,” it states.

Coulon said even Cheatham County residents outside of Ashland City can use the app to send tips to the Ashland City Police Department anonymously, and the department can relay those tips to the appropriate jurisdiction.

Citizens can also include image and video files to their web, text message or app tips to provide more specific information to Ashland City police, according to Tip411’s scope of services. The department will follow up on tips and will be able to respond to the anonymous tipster, archiving conversations.

Tip411 will assist the department in adding “submit a tip” and “sign up for alerts” buttons on the department’s website and social media pages, among other things.

Ashland City police can also send notifications — including maps, images, links, case information, suspect or missing person information and more — to users. Those alerts can also be posted to the department’s social media accounts.

Deputies will be able to log into Tip411 from anywhere with internet access on any device.

Coulon guessed that the service would be available to the public in about three weeks to a month.

Read the story from the Tennessean.

*This story incorrectly states the contract is for $3,600.

Cincinnati Police Debut New App

Police have a new free app available to let them alert residents to crimes and other situations, and for residents to send in tips.

The Cincinnati Police Department’s app (Cincinnati PD) is available now from Apple’s app store and the Google Play store. 

The app provides residents with neighborhood-specific crime alerts created by detectives and officers in the field, Police Chief Eliot Isaac said. Police can also use the app to send alerts about other situations like floods and road closures, he said.

Residents can also use the app to submit anonymous tips to police, including photos and videos, Isaac said. After making a tip, residents will be able to communicate anonymously with police.

“We have a new generation of adults, and they use more social media than ever before, so … we’re getting more information that way,”Isaac said. “And I think as we continue to work on building great relationships, that’s the opportunity to get more information coming in as well.”

Map crime locations

New map lets Canton residents look up crime locations

A recently debuted crime map allows Canton residents to see when and where robberies, burglaries and other crimes have occurred.

The map, a service provided at no additional cost as part of the Canton Police Department’s Tip411 subscription, is accessible at cantonohio.gov/police or communitycrimemap.com. Searches can be refined by address, date range and offense.

“One of our mantras has been ‘an informed community is a safer community.’” said Canton police Lt. John Gabbard. “We want people to know and be aware of what’s happening in your community.”

The option to create a map isn’t new, he said. It’s offered nationwide through Tip411, which allows people to send anonymous tips and receive police alerts, in partnership with data company LexisNexis.

As the department increasingly has used data to inform policing the past five years, record-keeping has reached the point where a map is feasible. Gabbard estimated police reports uploaded to the system are matched to the right location 97 percent of the time.

“As we improve how we can read our information and store it, then it makes a lot of things possible, and this is just one of those things,” Gabbard said.

Read the full story from the CantonRep.com