Text-a-tip anti-crime tool nears Lynn OK

LYNN – Ward 4 Councilor Richard Colucci believes in the power of text messaging.”We can use anonymous text messages as a tool to fight crime,” Colucci said Tuesday. “They do it in Boston and other cities, so why not in Lynn?”According to Colucci, dropping a dime on crime is looked upon as “snitching” in some neighborhoods and can lead to retaliation against those trying to make a difference. But with cell phones in such wide use and text messaging exceeding the popularity of voice calling among youth, police potentially have a new crime-fighting weapon at their disposal.The concept isn’t exactly new, at least not in Boston where the Text-a-Tip line has been receiving information since summer 2007. The Boston Police Department announced earlier this year that anonymous text messages were responsible for the arrests of two murder suspects and opened up new investigative leads in the shooting of an 8-year-old boy.In the latter case, the boy’s mother told police her son was shot to death in their apartment by gunmen in hooded sweatshirts during a home invasion. Police later received a text message from an anonymous tipster that the victim’s 7-year-old cousin accidentally shot him while the two boys were playing with a loaded 9mm handgun.Text messages received by the Boston Police Department’s Crime Stoppers Unit have proved far more prolific than the calls left as voice messages on traditional telephone tip lines.”They do this in Springfield and Somerville. From what I’ve been able to find out, it costs about $2,600 to set up the texting system and about $400 a year to run it,” Colucci said.The City Council on Tuesday voted to include Colucci’s proposal in the upcoming Public Safety Committee agenda where it is likely to find support and approval. “The committee is already on board with this,” Colucci said. “It’s a way to make the city safer. They already use it in Peabody.”Peabody’s system, Tip411, is run by St. Paul, Minn.-based CitizenObserver, as is Boston’s.When the Text-a-Tip program was implemented in Boston, Police Commissioner Edward Davis commented that at homicide scenes he repeatedly had witnessed the same scenario. “Everyone’s on their cell phone. Everyone’s texting,” he told reporters.Davis said it seemed the ideal way to tap into vast pools of information, especially among youths who might be less inclined to pick up the phone and call a police tip line.The police commissioner also sounded the death knell for the 800-number tip line, calling it obsolete and in need of updating. Besides, he said, the tips were often nothing more than complaints about trash pickup, potholes or other non-criminal matters.In Boston, when a tip is sent via text message, the information goes to the phone company and is then bounced to VeriSign, a business which veils the caller’s number and assigns a code to the specific call before forwarding it to Crime Stoppers.Over the past two years, more than 600 municipal and campus police agencies in the United States and Canada have adopted text-message tipster programs. Since mid-2007, Boston police have received more than 1,000 tips, including one that led to the suspect who lit an arson fire that killed two children and another that pointed investigators to the gunman who shot and killed a girl on her 18th birthday. In other communities, text messages sent to police have uncovered drug dealers, weapons in school lockers, and plots by gang members to maim or kill.Raymond F. Feyre, director of operations for Hampden District Attorney William M. Bennett, said Text-A-Tip is working and law enforcement agencies are trying to spread the word. The program was first promoted by Bennett’s office in 2008. It cost $2,600 to launch and another $400 per year to run, Feyre said.”That’s less than $50 a month,” Colucci said.Police nationwide have emphasized that text messaging systems designed to accept crime tips are not a substitute for calling 911 in an emergency.