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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Developed by tip411, the WKY Crime Stoppers app puts a powerful new crime-fighting tool into the hands of community members of all ages. The app is available for download at no charge via the Google Play Store or the iTunes App Store.
The public also can text message tips to police allowing the officers to respond creating an anonymous two-way conversation. To send an anonymous text tip to police using a cell phone, text the keyword WKY and the message/tip to 847411 (tip411).
“Our mission is to reduce crime and the fear of crime through outstanding police services in partnership with the community,” said Paducah Police Chief Brandon Barnhill. “The addition of this new app and texting service will allow us to have an even deeper partnership with our residents.”
West Kentucky Crime Stoppers Chairperson Pam Spencer said, “We believe the public is our greatest resource to law enforcement. The decision to engage the services of tip411 was based on expanding the opportunities for the public and police to share important information to keep our communities safe.”
Watch this video that the City of Paducah, KY and West Kentucky Crime Stoppers produced to inform residents about tip411, how to use it, and how they can help fight crime with it.
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The Collaborative produced a short video to share information about the Bennington County tip411 program, how it works, how to download the app, and more!
This year’s IACP was our most successful event ever! We met with dozens of customers, old and new, and had conversations with departments from across the country interested in learning about how they could use tip411 to better connect with their communities to help fight crime.
All those who stopped by our booth were entered for a chance to win a GoPro camera to help their department produce videos in their community, and this year’s winner was the City of Tigard, Oregon Police Department!
Congratulations to Commander Robert Rogers and the whole department on your new toy.
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
