The New York Police Department announced the release of a new app on Sept. 12 that would allow people to submit anonymous tips online and with “enhanced communication and media sharing.”
While in the past, people could submit tips directly to NYPD Crime Stoppers online, the new app allows tipsters to include photos or videos along with their tip, and communicate directly and in real time with a detective, NYPD Lieutenant Philip Roy said at a press conference.
The app, CS-NYC, also allows users to submit tips in 10 different languages. Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said he hopes to have 8 million downloads by tomorrow.
“This is just an extension of what we’re already doing in neighborhood policing,” Shea said. “When we get the store owners involved, the parents, the people that live and work in the communities, we are unstoppable.”
“There’s no phone number asked for, there’s no name asked for,” said Roy. “You’re only known as a code number that gets issued after you submit the tip.”
CS-NYC is available on Apple and Android devices and can be downloaded on app stores.
The new CrimeStoppers app is now available for iPhone & Android. Tipsters can provide info about a crime, send video/photos and/or converse with a detective in real time–all100% anonymous. Cash rewards up to $2,500. The CS-NYC app is available in the iPhone/Android app stores. pic.twitter.com/3kk6YysVPW
— Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) September 12, 2019
Crime Stoppers is a community-based program that has solved more than 1,500 murder and attempted murder cases and over 2,000 robbery cases. The program has also rewarded over $2.5 million to tipsters since its creation in the 80s, according to its website.
Crime Stoppers offers “up to 2500 if the tip leads to an arrest or indictment,” but Shea said that some people who call just want to help.
“People that call up—and I’ve said this before—they call up and say, ‘I don’t want money, I just want to make my block better,” he said.