The Mt. Lebanon Police Department is increasing its crime-fighting arsenal with a new app to help residents connect with the department to find information, receive and view alerts, and submit anonymous tips from their smartphone.
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Through its Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the U.S. Department of Justice is releasing over $34M in grant funds for state and local jurisdictions to prevent and reduce school violence through use of technology. tip411 is a qualified program to provide through the use of these grant funds.
As you may know, BJA is the primary provider of criminal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions.
The BJA STOP School Violence grant clearly outlines use of this kind of technology, tip411, as a priority. In fact, BJA plans to make up to 17 awards of up to $250,000 each under its Category 7: Technology and Reporting. The main objective under this category is “to implement a technological solution, such as an anonymous reporting technology, that can be implemented as a mobile phone-based app, a hotline, or a website in the applicant’s geographic area designed to enable students, teachers, faculty, and community members to anonymously identify threats of school violence… The proposed technology solution should be used to help prevent incidents before they occur.”
tip411 is a cost-effective web based toolset that allows law enforcement to communicate with, and get tips from, the community across a variety of channels including custom branded apps, 2-way anonymous text messages, community alerts via email, text and social media.
Applications are due June 11, 2019. To reiterate, tip411 is a qualified program to provide through these grant funds and we have staff on hand to help assist you in preparing your application to include our technology as part of your overall strategy.
Have questions? Contact us today!
Lack of witness cooperation has been a frustration for Benton Harbor Public Safety Director Dan McGinnis throughout his law enforcement career.
He hopes that use of a new, customized, crime-fighting smartphone app will help residents get involved. The tip411 system, which will be available to Benton Harbor residents within four weeks, is 100 percent anonymous, McGinnis said Friday.
McGinnis stresses that it is not intended to replace 911. He said residents in an emergency situation should continue to call 911. But someone witnessing a minor incident or having delayed information about a major incident should use the tip411 app. Residents in Benton Harbor without a smartphone will be able to text an anonymous tip to police via a cell phone by texting keyword BHPD to 847411 (tip411).
“This is not to replace 911,” McGinnis said. “But sometimes, if people want to be anonymous, they get frustrated if they call 911 to report something and a dispatcher starts asking a battery of questions when the person just wants to have the police come. People get frustrated and hang up.”
The app will allow residents to find information, view alerts, report crimes as they happen, and submit anonymous tips from their smartphone. The technology removes all identifying information before police see the tips, and there is no way to identify the sender.
“Our mission is to partner with the community to solve problems and improve public safety in a manner that is fair, impartial, transparent and consistent,” McGinnis said. “We believe our new tip411 app will help engage residents to partner with us and help fight crime.”
McGinnis said he does not know all the reasons people are uncooperative or unwilling to report crimes or provide witness testimony. He said a common reason is fear of retaliation. Although in reality, he said, that typically does not happen.
“Or sometimes they’re just apathetic. We have people who are victims and they will not name the perpetrator. It’s a cultural thing,” he said.
Developed by tip411, the app will improve the public’s access to agency alerts, social media channels and important information, tip411 President Terry Halsch stated in a news release.
“We’ve listened to feedback from partners like Benton Harbor and have built a more advanced and innovative product to help departments better engage their communities,” he said.
McGinnis said as soon as the app is available for residents to download, it will be announced through traditional media and social media.
Benton Harbor residents will soon be able to report suspicious activity through tip411, a smartphone app that allows people to report activities anonymously.
Public Safety Director Dan McGinnis said he wants to help citizens feel safe communicating with law enforcement.
“The company that does this will not reveal the person’s name,” he said.
He said they have talked to people who know who shot them, but won’t tell the police.
“We had a person who had been murdered, who was done in front of people who actually took him to the hospital and none of them wanted step up and speak,” he said.
McGinnis said it’s a chance to let people communicate on their own terms.
“We just need the information,” he said. “We don’t care where it come from in most cases. But if we don’t get it, it makes it hard for us to protect your neighborhoods.”
In addition, he said the app will allow the department to send out alerts if needed.
After the meeting, Deputy Director Mike Clark said residents will be notified, when the app is ready, about how to download and use it through the city’s website and a news release. He didn’t know how long it will take to launch the app.
During the meeting, McGinnis said one of the things residents sometimes want to report anonymously is illegal dumping.
McGinnis declared war on illegal dumping about two weeks ago. Anyone who sees someone suspected of illegal dumping can call the new dumping hotline at 944-7929.
“It’s absolutely appalling,” he said.
He said a state Department of Environmental Quality investigator last week found five automobile repair shops that didn’t have the proper paperwork, showing that they legally disposed of scrap tires.
“They are on notice,” he said. “… The tire situation is absolutely horrendous. We have hundreds and hundreds of tires in ravines.”
McGinnis said they have made 13 arrests concerning illegal dumping since the last City Commission meeting.
Ansonia police announced the arrest of two 17-year-old males Tuesday who allegedly caused $1,500 in damage to the soccer field at the Ansonia Nature Center.
Both suspects were charged with first-degree criminal mischief. They’ll appear in closed-doors hearings in juvenile court in Waterbury. They were arrested March 2.
“Information received through the Tip411 program and social media led to the identity of the suspects and several witnesses,” police said in a prepared statement. “All Ansonia residents are encouraged to sign up for Tip411, it is a program that allows people to leave anonymous tips and complaints with the police department as well as receive notifications from the police department.”
Three days after the arrest police were called to investigate a separate vandalism incident, this time at Abe Stone Park on Colony Street.
Police said a motorbike and a truck drove on the soccer field there.
“The vandalism is believed to have occurred over the last two days as the tire tracks are in the recent snow. The Ansonia Police Department is asking anyone with information to please call 203-735-1885. Information can also be left on Tip411,” police said.
