WANTED: Tucson crime fighters. Neither cape nor badge required. Anonymity guaranteed.
Tucson's Crime Stoppers, known by most as 88-CRIME, doles out rewards each month for tips that result in the arrest of a suspect, tips that allow law enforcement officers to close a case and tips that are made in a good faith effort to help investigators. On average, 100 tips a month come in.
Since Crime Stoppers began locally in 1980 thousands of arrests have been made and cases cleared, and more than $1.2 million in rewards have been given. Tips can be submitted via email, text message and telephone to a line where calls are not recorded. Crime Stoppers operates independent of any law enforcement agency. Telephones do not have caller identification and tips submitted online or via text go through an encrypted system to protect anonymity. Even if a tipster unintentionally provides personal information, the 88-CRIME staffers remove it from their tip sheet, said Susie Dupnik, executive director of Crime Stoppers. Not even the tipster's gender is revealed.
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Those who provide tips are given a report number they can use to check on the status of a case and potential reward.
Monthly, the Crime Stoppers board of directors reviews the recommendations of law enforcement officers and issues rewards commensurate with the value of the information provided by those who call, text or email tips. Rewards can range from $50 to $1,000. Sometimes, under special circumstances they can go higher. Once a reward is approved, the tipster can go to a predesignated bank, provide their report number and claim the cash.
"We look to 88-CRIME for a lot of our tough cases or cold cases. Anything we need help getting tips on, we go to 88-CRIME. They've been very helpful to us with a lot of our cases," said Ron Schlagel, a supervisor with U.S. Marshals Arizona WANTED Violent Offender Task Force. (WANTED stands for Warrant Apprehension Network and Targeted Enforcement Detail.)
Last year tips to Tucson's Crime Stoppers were responsible for the arrest four fugitives hiding in Mexico, Schlagel said.
In January 2011, three men were extradited for the August 2009 death of a 15-year-old Brenda Arenas who was shot while riding in a car with her mother and 3-year-old sister. Last April tips led to the extradition of Max Montijo-La Madrid, 34, who was wanted in the 2001 shooting of 16-year-old Tanee Natividad as she waited in a Jack in the Box drive-through for her order.
"It's a very valuable tool for us to use for specific cases. We don't bring them all our cases, but on those cases where the trail has gone cold, we look to 88-CRIME to help us develop new leads in our cases," Schlagel said.
On StarNet: Read articles about local crime and see such resources as photos of missing persons, most wanted fugitives, a database of home invasions, radio scanners and the daily interactive crime map at azstarnet.com/crime
By the numbers
Tucson's Crime Stoppers office has been tracking the tipline's successes since it began in 1980:
4,866
Arrests made
5,024
Cases cleared
$1.3 million
Rewards paid
$17.5 million
Property recovered
$104 million
Drugs seized
SOURCE: www.88crime.org
Did you know?
Crime Stoppers was started 36 years ago in New Mexico after a college student was murdered.
Michael Carmen was shot to death by two thugs in July 1976. He worked at a small Albuquerque gas station and took an extra night shift as a favor to a co-worker who needed time off. Carmen was murdered two weeks before he was to marry his high school sweetheart.
Six weeks later, without a break in the case, one of the homicide investigators, Detective Greg MacAleese, suggested a local television station re-enact the crime on a newscast and ask the public to provide anonymous tips for cash rewards. The re-enactment aired at 10 p.m. Sept. 8, 1976. The next morning detectives received a call from a man who had watched the newscast and remembered key information that allowed detectives to crack the case.
Now more than 1,100 Crime Stoppers programs throughout the world, in 16 countries, are providing tips to law-enforcement agencies.
SOURCE: www.crimestoppersnm.org
Tips
How to leave an anonymous tip for Crime Stoppers
Online: www.88crime.org
Text message: Send text to 274637, then enter "tip259" plus your text message.
Phone: 88-CRIME tipline at 882-7463 (Collect calls accepted, Spanish-speaking operators available)
Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191.
