WILMINGTON — Cell phones have changed the world, for better or worse they are a part of most everyone’s life and while they serve many purposes, the Wilmington Police Department is relying on them to help solve crimes.
The relationship between police and the residents they protect is an important one since both parties often rely on each other. Wilmington Police Department’s Text-a-Tip program aims to further strengthen that relationship by giving residents a change to report crimes that would otherwise go unreported.
“People use text a tip for various reasons,” Edward Pompey, the department’s crime prevention specialist said. “Whether it’s fear of retaliation for talking to the police or they simply don’t want to give their names, text a tip allows the police department to build rapport with a citizen without knowing who the citizen is.”
Wilmington Police spokeswoman Jennifer Dandron said “it’s important for the police and citizens to work together.”
“Text A Tip gives citizens another avenue to do that. The more help we get from the public, the better we are as an organization. The better we are as an organization, the better we can serve the community,” Dandron said.
How it Works
The Text-a-Tip program is fairly simple, and all that is needed to use it is a cellphone with text messaging capabilities. It also keeps all tips completely anonymous, since the main server that receives the messages is not associated with any police department. Once the tip is received, the message is encrypted and then sent to police. It is impossible for police to track who sent the tip.
- A witness to a crime can text TIP708 followed by a message to 274637 (CRIMES). Once the message is received, the sender’s name and phone number are removed before forwarding the tip to the police
- A randomly generated user ID will be assigned to the tip
- If senders have signature attached to their text messages, it must be turned off if wanting to stay anonymous
- Text-a-Tip then provides two-way communication
“Text-a-Tip is a great resource for people who want to remain anonymous, for whatever reason, but who want to share information that could make a difference in an investigation. These tips have assisted in multiple cases and investigations since the program was implemented,” Dandron said.
“People use text a tip for various reasons. Whether it’s fear of retaliation for talking to the police or they simply don’t want to give their names, text a tip allows the police department to build rapport with a citizen without knowing who the citizen is.” — Edward Pompey, Crime prevention specialist
By the numbers
While all types of crime can be reported through the Text-a-Tip program, by far the most reported tips are related to drug use. In 2017, 307 specific drug related tips were reported to the WPD. Suspicious persons/vehicles also saw a high number of reports, according to WPD data.
“The number of tips we’ve received via Text-a-Tip more than doubled in 2017 from 2016 and we believe those numbers will continue to grow,” Dandron said. “We break down the tips based on offense type and oftentimes, we’ll receive duplicate tips. We consistently receive more tips about drugs than most anything else.”
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