interview – Page 2

December 17, 2018December 28, 2018 drivi86 Agency Spotlight

Statewide Agencies Seeing the Benefits of tip411: An Interview with South Carolina DNR

tip411 interviewed Captain Lee Ellis of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources about his agency’s use of tip411.

Q: Tell us about your agency (how many sworn, how many areas/miles are under your jurisdiction, etc.) and the agency’s role in the state.
A:The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division currently has 262 sworn officers. SCDNR Law Enforcement has statewide enforcement authority with the primary responsibility of enforcement of the state’s criminal codes related to Hunting, Boating, Recreational and Commercial Fishing, Homeland Security, and Search & Rescue response. SC DNR is responsible for patrolling 30,111 square miles of land, 460,000 acres of lakes, 8,000 miles of rivers, and 3,000 miles of coastal waters.

Q: How did you hear about tip411?
A:Upon taking over our “Operation Game Thief“ anti-poaching program, I determined that SCDNR needed to increase the avenues through which anonymous reporting of violations was possible. At the time we had a toll-free phone line as the only means of reporting violations. Through talking with other states and conducting some internet research, it was determined we wanted to be able to receive tips not only through our website, but with the huge usage of smartphones we felt an anonymous tip phone app would also need to be a requirement. After talking with several vendors it was determined that tip411 was a perfect fit for our needs.

Q: How is tip411 administered in your agency (responsibilities, protocols, etc.)?
A:All tips come into our 24 hour radio dispatch facility. Once a tip is received, the dispatcher corresponds with the tipster and, once the area where the violation is occurring is determined, an officer assigned to that area of responsibility is given the tip for follow-up.

Q: How has the tip411 system aided your agency?
A:Through the use of tip411, which we named SCDNR Tips, we have received over 1,100 tips since going live in July of 2016. During this time, officers have not only received information regarding violations through the tip411 program, but they have received photographs and videos through the tip app as well. This not only aids in prosecution, but in many cases the violators have admitted to their actions once confronted with the photographic or video evidence.

Q: Any notable tips/arrests credited to tip411 that come to mind?
A:We have made numerous arrests from tips submitted through tip411 for violations such as night hunting, out of season hunting, hunting over bait, and taking over the limit. The fact that our officers have a direct line to contact the tip submitter without breaking the anonymous nature of the system allows for immediate updates while investigating tips. SCDNR has received numerous tips on crimes other than natural resource violations over the past 2 years, and we pass this information on to the appropriate agency or collaborate during the investigation to ensure they receive the information they need without compromising our tipsters’ personal information.

Q: What have you done to promote your tip411 system to make sure residents know about it and use it?
A:We have issued news releases on our program and have used media advertising to ensure the message gets out to residents across the state.

Q: Many of our customers are local police departments. Being a state agency, what advice would you give to other agencies like yours who may be considering tip411 or an anonymous tip solution?
A:At first, SCDNR began using these tip submission opportunities as a test to see if these venues were successful. As tip411 is a low cost subscription-based service, it allowed our agency to avoid purchasing software and the costs associated with maintaining expensive software programs. In just a short time it has proven it was a worthy investment, and we recently renewed our subscription for another 2 years.

Q: Anything else that’s important to note?
A:The service provided by tip411 has been great! Their technical help working with our IT department has allowed for SCDNR to go from a single toll-free phone tip line to submission venues using our agency website, agency Facebook page, agency smartphone app, and to link with private outdoor related apps to provide a direct link to our tip submission venues even when not using an SCDNR app.

November 20, 2018December 28, 2018 drivi86 Agency Spotlight

Interview with Rockland County, NY about their use of tip411

tip411 interviewed Sergeant Earl Lorence of the Clarkstown, New York Police Department about his experience with tip411 at the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office.

Q: Tell us about your community and the work of the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office (how many residents, how many sworn, your role between PD and DA’s Office, etc.).
A: There are approximately 600 sworn law enforcement officers in Rockland County, NY. There are approximately 325,000 residents in Rockland County. The RC DA and the 10 police departments and RC Sheriff’s Department work collaboratively to reduce, disrupt and prevent crime.

Q: How did you hear about tip411?
A: Yonkers PD / Westchester, NY implemented it years ago and we have been aware of the platform since that time. We were looking for a way to engage our citizens

Q: How is tip411 administered in your area (responsibilities, protocols, etc.)?
A: As the tips come in, they are immediately disseminated to the agency representative that handles that jurisdiction. They can then handle the tip the way that they see fit according to their agency guidelines.

Q: How has tip411 aided the DA’s Office?
A: It has brought several different law enforcement agencies to work together for the common good of the community.

Q: Any notable tips/arrests credited to tip411 that come to mind?
A: The platform was responsible for information leading to an arrest of a resident who had weapons and a large amount of drugs. The tipster only felt comfortable reaching out anonymously via the app and continued communicating, which helped us build the case and arrest the suspect.

Q: What have you done to promote your tip411 system to make sure residents know about it and use it?
A: We have been doing ‘free’ advertising on social media via each departments Facebook page and Twitter page. In addition, we advertised in our local Sunday newspaper and digital advertising via their platform as well.

Q: Any advice for other agencies considering tip411?
A: Have ‘buy-in’ from the top down or else it may impede the progress of getting the message out to the public.

June 19, 2018December 28, 2018 drivi86 Agency Spotlight

“…Communication is vital to our residents…and tip411 provides a great tool for the police!”

tip411 interviewed City Manager Pete Landrum and Police Chief Dennis Evers of Beavercreek, Ohio about their experience with tip411 in their community.

Q: Tell us about your community and the Beavercreek Police Department (how many residents, how many sworn, etc.).
Chief Evers: The City of Beavercreek is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio and is the largest city in Greene County. We are one of the fastest growing suburbs in the Dayton area and are situated near Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The city is comprised of approximately 46,000 residents. Many residents are current or former military personnel employed at the base or by one of the many research and manufacturing firms engaging in defense technologies, aerospace and other advanced technologies.

Our police department has 50 sworn officers. We have received the “Accreditation with Excellence” distinction from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA). We have two major highways and two malls within the city that pose policing challenges due to the increased daytime population.

Q: How did you hear about tip411?
Chief Evers: Our current City Manager, Pete Landrum, was familiar with this product at his previous position as Township Administrator in Delhi Township, a suburb of Cincinnati. He suggested we explore using it.
Manager Landrum: It is a good communication tool with residents and easy to use for both users. It worked well in Delhi Township and I thought it would also be a good fit in the City of Beavercreek. I simply sent Chief Evers the link to tip411 on the Delhi Township website and asked him to review and told him how I thought it was a really good tool and program.

Q: How is tip411 administered in your area (responsibilities, protocols, etc.)?
Chief Evers: After normal administrative business hours, the Communications Center and the on duty supervisor are responsible for monitoring and directing the tip information for the proper response. During normal business hours, one of the Captains is responsible for this function.

Q: How has tip411 aided Beavercreek?
Chief Evers: tip411 has allowed us to push out to our various social media platforms our information, notifications, alerts and news releases through one click of the mouse. It affords us another means to facilitate two-way communication with our community.
Manager Landrum: The value is in the communication with residents. It is a great way for residents to communicate and provide tips to us as well as a great way for our Police Department to mass communicate with residents and ask for their assistance. It is difficult to place a value on such a tool that will prevent crime or help catch those who have committed crimes, which can save lives and prevent property damage.

Q: Any notable tips/arrests credited to tip411 that come to mind?
Chief Evers: With the help of tip411, we have been able to identify suspects in multiple cases, including thefts and a bank robbery. By using tip411 to post surveillance images of the suspects to the Police Department Facebook and Twitter pages, we are able to seek assistance from not only our community, but also the entire Dayton area and beyond. Citizens viewing the post are able to quickly and conveniently submit an anonymous tip using the link provided in our posting. With the help of those tips, we arrested a purse thief and a serial shoplifter who had stolen TV’s from multiple stores in our city. We also positively identified a bank robber after receiving multiple tips. In all of these cases, the tips leading to the suspects’ identities have been within one day of our postings, which is a testament to the efficiency and effectiveness of tip411.

Q: What have you done to promote your tip411 system to make sure residents know about it and use it?
Chief Evers: We use our web page and the quarterly city “In Touch” newsletter that goes out to all of our residents. We also use the customized tip411 flyer, which we distribute at community events.

Q: Any advice for other agencies considering tip411?
Chief Evers: Our agency has found it to be a valuable tool that has aided our efforts to push out important information to the community. The communication and response we have been receiving from the community when we have solicited their help in identifying suspects has been phenomenal and exceeded our expectations.
Manager Landrum: I just know that communication is vital to our residents with all departments and tip411 provides a great tool for the police!

May 22, 2017May 17, 2018 admin Agency Spotlight

“Everyone is texting; no one wants to talk on the phone anymore.”

tip411 interviewed Assistant Chief Jim Speyer of the Cheektowaga, New York Police Department. Here’s what he had to say about using tip411 in their community:

Q: Tell us about your community and the Cheektowaga Police Department (how many residents, how many sworn, etc.).
A: We are a first ring suburb of the City of Buffalo with a major shopping mall that serves Western NY, Southern Ontario, Canada, and Northern Pennsylvania. It’s the hub of a huge retail area we have and brings in lots of traffic and visitors to our area. The Buffalo-Niagara Airport is located in our jurisdiction as well

There are about 87,000 people in the town of Cheektowaga, and the demographics are changing from predominantly Polish and German neighborhoods to African American neighborhoods in the area that borders the City of Buffalo.

Our department has 129 sworn officers and we’re big on community policing and getting out and knowing the public. Our goal is always to try to open doors between us and the community we serve.

Q: How did you hear about tip411?
A: Our chief was attending an International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference several years ago and heard about it there.

After that, he brought it to Cheektowaga in 2012 and we’ve been using it for the last 5 years.

Q: How is tip411 administered in your department (responsibilities, protocols, etc.)?
A: When we first implemented tip411 we had all the tips going to supervisors; sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. When they received a tip, each of them would designate if it needed to be forwarded to someone in particular for follow up.

We tried to stress to the community in the beginning that it was a tip line, not something that should be used for reporting in-progress crimes as it was not monitored 24/7.

However, the way society is today, it’s all about texting and we receive lots of calls for service through tip411 despite or efforts to communicate to people they should be calling 911.

Once we realized this was how people wanted to communicate, we set it up so that tips also go to our dispatch center. Supervisors still receive tips, but dispatches are also alerted to a tip so if it’s something that needs an immediate response they can dispatch units immediately.

Q: How has the tip411 system aided your department?
A: tip411 aided our department by helping us receive some valid information and tips on drugs. Lots of tips we receive are narcotics-related or about suspicious activity that gets forwarded to our narcotics officers who can initiate an investigation on an address.

People have always been able to call in to our department and say that want to be anonymous and we’ll adhere to that, but people don’t trust that it’s truly anonymous if they can. So the value of tip411 is that people trust this system to truly keep them anonymous and they use it for that.

There are times we go back and forth via text message with the tipster to get more information and sometimes they end up volunteering their identity to help us get in touch with them to get even more actionable intel on a case.

Q: Any notable tips/arrests credited to tip411 that come to mind?
A: Just a few months ago, we received a tip that 2 people were in a car smoking crack. Our officers would never have known about it, but a tip came in to our dispatchers and they dispatched units. Officers found crack cocaine and heroin and arrested both individuals in the car.

This is typical of our system. We get tips on suspicious people, suspicious cars, etc. The reality, we as police believe something like this should be called in, but if people aren’t comfortable, then they use tip411 and its better than us not getting this information at all.

Q: What have you done to promote your tip411 system to make sure residents know about it and use it?
A: tip411 is promoted on our website and Facebook page. On Facebook we often post about individuals with outstanding warrants and ask people to share information with us via tip411.

When we first launched tip411, we rented billboards in the area and had a big display, which I think was great for getting in front of people and introducing the system. We also had our tip411 information stenciled on our police cruisers.

5 years later, we still hand out flyers with our tip information at community events and when I send out press releases to the media about certain incidents, I always include our tip411 information in there to ask residents to submit tips and help us fight crime.

Q: Any advice for other departments considering tip411?
A: I think it’s obvious that things change and even though it was not meant to be something for people to use to report crimes or incidents in progress, I feel it’s a necessity to have.

Around here, most departments have some form of an anonymous tip line, and to have this text option from tip411 is great. Everyone is texting; no one wants to talk on the phone anymore.

It’s a cultural thing. If people feel more comfortable texting – just like the case I mentioned where people were reported smoking crack – if people feel more comfortable texting than calling then that’s fine because we still got the information and got drugs off our streets.

April 17, 2017May 17, 2018 admin Agency Spotlight

Interview with Delhi Township: Part II

tip411 interviewed Chief Jim Howarth of the Delhi Township Police Department in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is part two of our three-part conversation.

PART II

Q: How has the tip411 system aided your department?
A: tip411 has been well received by both my officers and our residents. It’s one of the best things that have happened to us – We can’t be everywhere all the time, but we have 30,000 residents that have eyes that can help us find things. It could be that 1 tip or call that solves a string of burglaries, and we need our residents help as much as they need ours.

When I took over as Police Chief in 2008, others before me didn’t think they needed to share information with the public. I think people need to know things do happen in Delhi, when they happen, and not wait a week to see it in the paper. We need to inform the public and push information out to have them help us solve crimes as they are happening, and we are doing that now thanks to tip411.

Q: Any notable tips/arrests credited to tip411 that come to mind?
A: When we put out surveillance pictures to try to identify who suspects are – whether it be for a theft, assault, armed robbery – there’s only 1 case I can remember where we’ve NEVER received any tips. All of the other hundreds of cases we’ve asked the public for help on we’ve received tips and were able to identify the suspect.

Literally within 5 minutes we’re getting tips with information. It’s tremendous as far as being able to recover property and hold criminals accountable.

One case I can remember was when we put out information after an elderly gentleman left his card in an ATM. We saw that the person that came to the ATM after him grabbed the card and then we traced that it was used at a nearby supermarket shortly thereafter. We put the suspect’s picture out around 7pm and 15 seconds later the clerk in my office asked me if I sent an alert. I told her I just hit send and she told me we had already received a tip from someone telling us they saw the alert, looked at the image, and realized it was a former coworker of theirs.

I don’t put out tons of stuff because I don’t want people to get tired of it, but I use it when we need to and it’s always been a great help. I also like to do follow up posts to let people know we were able to identify the suspect and solve a crime thanks to their help.

The only negative thing I’ve heard is…if we were to get rid of tip411, a lot of residents would be upset. Luckily, if we ever lost funding, I’m confident I could go to outside sourcing like business associations in our community because they love it and I’m sure they’d help us fund it.

Q: Your department also partners with Crime Stoppers. Can you talk about how you use Crime Stoppers and how tip411 can augment it?
A: They’re very similar in nature. Crime Stoppers give rewards out and for the most part tips that come through tip411 we don’t give out rewards. Sometimes while communicating back and forth through tip411 we realize the tipster may have good information but aren’t giving it up easy, so continue to get information we will say, “hey, if this pans out and we make an arrest, we will reach out to Crime Stoppers and get a reward for you.”

Most tips we get are coming in anonymously through tip411. I say anonymously but many people are comfortable putting their name and number in the message they send to us as well. More come through tip411 than via phone, but it’s a good mix.

Some people, I understand, are hesitant to contact police because they think there may be retribution for sharing information with us, but we have a community that wants to help and they do – dramatically. With tip411 there’s much less “us vs. them.” Residents now feel like they’re a part of the department.

Chief Howarth Interview – Part I

Chief Howarth Interview – Part III