campaign for text a tip working
This just in from the Boston Herald, page 1.
I wrote the campaign. Dave Gardiner art directed it and CD'ed it.
Stop snitchin’ culture silenced
After years of trickling in, crime tips flood BPD
By O’Ryan Johnson | Friday, March 7, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
Photo
Photo by Angela Rowlings
Anti-crime tips poured into Boston police last year at five times the rate they did just two years ago, a Herald review shows - a surge that seems to spell the end of the deadly Stop-Snitching subculture that allowed thugs to bully Hub neighborhoods into silence.
“If it’s not dead, I hope that it’s in intensive care,” Officer Mike Charbonnier, who runs the city’s Crimestoppers unit, said of the street code of silence that professes to punish “snitches.”
“It all adds up to less tolerance for a violent culture,” he said.
The flood of information to cops coincided with the rollout of a first-in-the-nation, anonymous, text-message tip line last year and a media blitz that included radio commercials, billboards and bus stop ads telling residents how to contact police if they have information about a crime.
“I’m thrilled with it, no doubt about it, the numbers are increasing,” Boston police Commissioner Edward Davis said yesterday. “We’re getting a better handle on what’s happening in the neighborhood. I think the more effective we are at establishing a connection with the community, the more the community will trust us.”
Last year the BPD received 732 phone calls to the anonymous Crimestoppers line and 523 text messages for a total of 1,255 tips from a community that appears to be fed up with street crime.
That’s up five-fold from 2005, when the city’s murder rate hit a 10-year high, and Mayor Thomas M. Menino declared war on the popular “Stop Snitchin’ ” T-shirts sold at hip hop clothing stores. That year cops got just 249 tips about crimes.
An anonymous tip last summer led to the capture of accused murderer Cornelius Brown, 33, who police believe gunned down a Mattapan man during a July 4 cookout in front of his horrified family.
Cops say they were hunting Brown on Aug. 18 when a tipster called to tell them that the Dorchester fugitive was hiding out at a Bridgewater apartment. Moments later the Boston Police Department fugitive unit closed in and captured Brown.
Another tip led to a raid on a Hub drug den where kids were living. At 7 p.m. Oct. 1, an anonymous tipsters called cops to the alleged drug house. The tip was passed to district police, then on to the Police Department’s drug control unit. Two hours later, cops knocked on the door and seized drugs and filed a protection order for the children found living there.
In some cases, the text-a-tip program has allowed residents to feed police information while the crime is unfolding. In one instance, police said, a tipster in a hospital overheard a drug dealer talk to a friend, then watched as the dealer peddled drugs.
Without speaking, the tipster text-messaged the information to cops, and gave them a play-by-play as the dealer was working.
“I believe the community is saying, ‘Enough is enough. We must save our children and their future.’ And they are speaking out on what they saw because they’re not afraid anymore,” said the Rev. Shaun O. Harrison, founder of Dorchester’s Operation Project GO, an outreach program.
BPD brass credit the spike in tips to several programs aimed at building trust between the community and the Department.
“I think change comes gradually. It never happens overnight,” Charbonnier said. “We’re beginning to tap into the stop snitching culture.”
To leave information anonymously call (800) 494-TIPS or text message the word TIP to CRIME (27463).
Article URL:
I wrote the campaign. Dave Gardiner art directed it and CD'ed it.
Stop snitchin’ culture silenced
After years of trickling in, crime tips flood BPD
By O’Ryan Johnson | Friday, March 7, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage
Photo
Photo by Angela Rowlings
Anti-crime tips poured into Boston police last year at five times the rate they did just two years ago, a Herald review shows - a surge that seems to spell the end of the deadly Stop-Snitching subculture that allowed thugs to bully Hub neighborhoods into silence.
“If it’s not dead, I hope that it’s in intensive care,” Officer Mike Charbonnier, who runs the city’s Crimestoppers unit, said of the street code of silence that professes to punish “snitches.”
“It all adds up to less tolerance for a violent culture,” he said.
The flood of information to cops coincided with the rollout of a first-in-the-nation, anonymous, text-message tip line last year and a media blitz that included radio commercials, billboards and bus stop ads telling residents how to contact police if they have information about a crime.
“I’m thrilled with it, no doubt about it, the numbers are increasing,” Boston police Commissioner Edward Davis said yesterday. “We’re getting a better handle on what’s happening in the neighborhood. I think the more effective we are at establishing a connection with the community, the more the community will trust us.”
Last year the BPD received 732 phone calls to the anonymous Crimestoppers line and 523 text messages for a total of 1,255 tips from a community that appears to be fed up with street crime.
That’s up five-fold from 2005, when the city’s murder rate hit a 10-year high, and Mayor Thomas M. Menino declared war on the popular “Stop Snitchin’ ” T-shirts sold at hip hop clothing stores. That year cops got just 249 tips about crimes.
An anonymous tip last summer led to the capture of accused murderer Cornelius Brown, 33, who police believe gunned down a Mattapan man during a July 4 cookout in front of his horrified family.
Cops say they were hunting Brown on Aug. 18 when a tipster called to tell them that the Dorchester fugitive was hiding out at a Bridgewater apartment. Moments later the Boston Police Department fugitive unit closed in and captured Brown.
Another tip led to a raid on a Hub drug den where kids were living. At 7 p.m. Oct. 1, an anonymous tipsters called cops to the alleged drug house. The tip was passed to district police, then on to the Police Department’s drug control unit. Two hours later, cops knocked on the door and seized drugs and filed a protection order for the children found living there.
In some cases, the text-a-tip program has allowed residents to feed police information while the crime is unfolding. In one instance, police said, a tipster in a hospital overheard a drug dealer talk to a friend, then watched as the dealer peddled drugs.
Without speaking, the tipster text-messaged the information to cops, and gave them a play-by-play as the dealer was working.
“I believe the community is saying, ‘Enough is enough. We must save our children and their future.’ And they are speaking out on what they saw because they’re not afraid anymore,” said the Rev. Shaun O. Harrison, founder of Dorchester’s Operation Project GO, an outreach program.
BPD brass credit the spike in tips to several programs aimed at building trust between the community and the Department.
“I think change comes gradually. It never happens overnight,” Charbonnier said. “We’re beginning to tap into the stop snitching culture.”
To leave information anonymously call (800) 494-TIPS or text message the word TIP to CRIME (27463).
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