IACP “New Product Showcase” Features tip411

Will you be attending IACP 2015 in Chicago this October?

We are honored to be listed as part of the IACP’s New Product Showcase, highlighting our work helping schools, as well as local and federal agencies, fight crime.

tip411 President Terry Halsch and members of our team will be at Booth #3619 sharing information about our products.

We hope you’ll stop by to learn about tip411 and how we can help your agency engage with the public, share information, and receive anonymous tips to make your community safer.

Learn more at tip411.com and follow us on social media @tip411CO and Facebook.com/tip411 to see how other agencies are benefiting from or system.

“Fighting Crime is a Partnership” with tip411 & Leander Police

tip411 interviewed Assistant Chief of Police Jeffrey R. Hayes of the Leander Police Department, who is a member of the coordination team in charge of the department’s tip411 system in Leander, Texas.  For more information about how Leander is promoting their tip411 system, watch the Public Service Announcement they created to share with the media, public, and online.

Q: Tell us about Leander and your department.
A: Leander is one of the fastest growing cities in one of the fastest growing regions of the United States. We are located just north of Austin, Texas in what was once considered a rural farming community. Due to steady growth and a healthy economy, Leander is transitioning from its rural roots to a vibrant and self-sufficient city. At present, our population is approximately 38,000 and growing. We are projected to top 100,000 in the next ten years. To put it in perspective, Leander alone has 10% of all new housing starts in the Central Texas region.

Q: Why tip411?
A: A number of on-line organizations have rated Leander as one of the “Top Ten Safest” communities in Texas and one of the “Top 100 Safest” cities in America. We want to keep it that way. With growth comes the challenging task of staying intimately connected with our community in profound and meaningful ways. Communicating with our citizens in ways that foster strong relationships and staying connected in a way that make our department more focused and effective. In that regard, tip411was, well, it was a no brainer. Our department is acutely aware that we cannot be everywhere at once and we rely heavily on the community being our eyes and ears. tip411’s anonymous tip and alert features gives us a communication tool that gives a voice to those who might otherwise remain silent. An important aspect of good communication is simply listening, and the tip411 system allows us to do just that – listen. Not everyone feels comfortable talking with the police, no matter how good your relationship might be with your community. tip411 allows us to hear crime information and concerns we might not otherwise be able to hear.

Q: Why do you think branding and promoting tip411 is so important?
A: From the beginning, we understood the importance of the tip411 tool, but we also realized that our community must know it is available to them and how easy it is to use. We are a “smart phone society,” and part of a new generation that has multiple tools right at their fingertips on a device that is so powerful that it’s probably unfair to even call it a “phone.” The service and technology interface that we hold in our hands can be used for a myriad of functions, well beyond voice communication. We are an instantaneous information and communication society and there are growing expectations that services, including those offered by law enforcement, can be accessed via that powerful handheld device. tip411’s interface is as easy as an app, a text, or connecting over the internet. Members of our community must know it is available, that it is easy to use, and for those who’s anonymity is important – that it is just that – anonymous.

Q: What have you done to brand and promote the tip411 system in Leander?
A: To get the word out to our citizens, we knew that we must take the product and customize it to meet our department’s needs and the community’s expectations. We knew that we had to approach promotion, well the whole program in fact, in our own “style.” We practice a partnership based policing philosophy, where we strive to develop essential relationships with members of our community necessary to accomplish effective police work. With that, we knew that tip411 had a natural place in that partnership. Hence the lead line on all of our promotional materials is “Fighting Crime is a Partnership.” We paid very close attention to the strategies used in other communities who have successfully integrated tip411 into their toolbox, and we took those approaches and tinkered with them until they were unique, or at least had a “Leander” style that was easily identifiable. People that live in this community know that they enjoy a high quality of life and a low crime rate. They also know that they want to keep that way. We felt that it was valuable to show how using tip411 and the alert system could play a big part in keeping Leander “a great place to live, work, and play.”

Q: Anything you would tell other agencies considering tip411?
A: Let me address one challenge that we will wrestle with for the foreseeable future and that is the challenge that all law enforcement agencies face – money. Many law enforcement agencies have access to funding that we do not have now, but may have in the future. We can’t wait for the future to get the word out on tip411. For it to remain a valuable and effective tool, we must keep pushing its availability and value out to the public as often as possible. I will continue to watch how other agencies approach this same challenge. I also must confess that I have already “borrowed” and customized several ideas from other agencies that I thought would help us here in Leander. We will continue to seek alternative funding sources, donations, sponsors, and grants, to come up with the most cost effective way to keep tip411 in the public eye. We will make tip411 part of all department requests for assistance from the public and a prominent part of our crime prevention / community service programs, while definitely maximizing exposure through social media as often as possible.

Q: Is there anything that I haven’t asked that you would like to tell other agencies?
A: To paraphrase Sir Robert Peel, “we are the public, and the public are the police.” We are paid to do that which is incumbent upon every citizen in the interest of their community’s welfare and existence. The tip411 system is an interface that allows the Leander public to participate in policing their community. They can contribute to the partnership necessary for Leander to remain a great place to live. Those that have a true concern for their community are hungry to help, and they want to help us keep our crime rate low and quality of life high. Before we had our “hard launch,” we started placing the tip411 logos and icons on our Facebook page and webpage. With no fanfare or promotion, we began getting a few neighborhood concern tips. That happened with little or no effort on our part. Just think how powerful the tip411 system will be when we begin to promote it and make it an integral part of the way we do business in Leander.

Leander PD launches crime fighting app

The Leander Police Department announced their new app that allows the community to anonymously share any public safety concerns directly to the police.

The app created by tip411 will send a secure message from your smart phone to LPD about any suspicious or criminal activity.

In a press release officers said they hope this will become a powerful tool for the community to fight-crime.

“The Leander Police Department understands that fighting crime takes a working partnership with the community. We cannot be everywhere at every moment so we rely on the members of the community to be our eyes and ears,” said Police Chief Greg Minton. “We know that the members of our community are our greatest resource.”

Read the complete story from the KXAN.

Tipping made easy

Last year, the Clinton Police Department rolled out an anonymous texting service that opened another avenue for citizens to report suspicious activity and incidents the agency could use to solve crimes. Now, through its own phone app, the department is making that process even easier — and more visual.

The ‘tipcpd’ app is available for free through the App Store on Apple and Android phones, and allows for quick and anonymous submission of tips from local citizens. As with the existing texting service, residents will be able to text back and forth with local law enforcement while remaining completely unknown to officers.

“We implemented it last year as just the texting of anonymous tips,” Police Capt. Donald Edwards said this week. “We’ve had some pretty good success and got tips on many cases. We’re excited about this new feature because it opens up the door for the ease of sending messages and the ability to attach pictures.”

The new app is an expansion of Tip411, a high-tech system that allows for anonymous texting of tips. Unrolled last summer, the Tip411 system has been utilized approximately 30 times for anonymous tips, ranging from those on murders to what Edwards called “day-to-day complaints,” which can be suspicious activity or other incidents where someone does not want to call 911.

Read the rest of the story in the Sampson Independent.

tip411 Helps Hazard, KY Solve Cold Case, Fight Drug Crime, and Share City Information

tip411 interviewed Detective Cpt. Paul Campbell of the Hazard Police Department, who is in charge of the department’s use of their tip411 system in Hazard, Kentucky.

Q: Tell us about Hazard and your department.
A:
Hazard PD has about 50 employees, sworn and civilian.

Our city fluctuates in population from about 3,500 to nearly 20,000 during daytime hours due to commuters. In the past few years we’ve seen a significant rise in felonies in our area as well as a rise in drug problems (meth, heroin, cocaine, pills, etc.), just like many other cities have seen.

Q: How is the tip411 system used in your city?
A:
tip411 is a collaboration between the police department and City Hall, allowing us to send alerts with important city information while also having the ability to let community members submit anonymous tips about crime and other public safety issues.

We receive tips about many subjects, including thefts, prostitution, and suspicious persons, but the overwhelming amount have been drug related.

If I had to compare how many tips we received in the last 5 years before tip411 it would not compare to the amount of tips we’ve received in just the past 4 or 5 months with tip411.

Q: Why do you think that is?
A:
Being able to have a place for people to go to and cry for help while feeling safe about it has been a big help. Now they can reach out anonymously without having to block their number, change their voice, etc.

Not every tip has been gold, but 25% have contained good, decent intel that we would not have received without having the service. We’ve benefited big time.

Q: Why tip411?
A: We initially looked at tip411 just because of its anonymous tip feature. At about the same time, City Hall approached me about finding a mass alerting system to inform residents about city issues.

tip411 took care of not only the police department’s needs, but City Hall as well, and helps us to work in collaboration with one another to share alerts about boil water advisories, road closures, utility disruptions, and more.

Q: Anything you would tell other agencies considering tip411?
A: What it comes down to is, “how much are you willing to pay to keep the public happy while helping them feel safe and informed?”

It’s well worth the money and it’s kinda silly not to invest in it. The response we’ve had was been nothing but positive; beyond what we expected and I really don’t think we could go back to the old way of taking tips.

All it takes is that one time, on that one cold case.

One of the tips that came in through tip411 was about a suspect we had been looking into in relation to a double homicide in 2013. He was a suspect in an unrelated robbery, and we put his information out via tip411. We received a tip that helped us locate him and bring him in for questioning. During an interrogation he confessed to his involvement in the 2013 homicide and we were able to solve that cold case.

The system paid for itself right then and there.