The Hollister Police Department has been joined by WeTiP, an anonymous crime reporting service, and Police Chief Jeff Miller said it will be extended throughout the county.
"We are very pleased to add this to our arsenal of crime suppression efforts," said Chief Jeff Miller of the Hollister Police Department, "and since we recognize that crime doesn't stop at the city limit, we went ahead and paid for the service for the entire county."
According to WeTiP pamphlets, anyone wishing to report information to law enforcement can call the organization. Reporting parties are then assigned a code number, and the operator passes the information along to appropriate law enforcement agencies who then conduct their own investigation.
"To date," reads the brochure, "WeTiP operators have taken 440,000 tips, resulting in 15,700 criminal arrests and over 8,000 arrests."
A press release from the police department notes that this is part of their gang suppression efforts.
"We hope that people afraid of retaliation will use this service to report," said Miller.
The police chief went on to stress that WeTiP is not a service for crimes in progress, saying that in such a situation citizens should immediately dial 911.
Miller also stressed that the service does not replace neighborhood watches and that Hollister resident's need to keep an eye on the community.
"What we get the most success from is when people call in as they are seeing something occurring, telling us what happened, what the suspects looked like, and where they're headed."
Anyone interested in using the services of WeTiP can call 1-800-78-CRIME.
Jeff Gatlin Jeff Gatlin is a staff writer at The Hollister Free Lance. You can call him at (831) 637-5566 or send him an email.
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