Crime Stoppers a vital tool
Tipster program gives Austin police leads on toughest cases.
Austin police officials say they promote the crime-solving assistance nonprofit Crime Stoppers — and the rewards it offers for successful tips — not to find witnesses who can testify on the stand or establish probable cause for an arrest.
They promote it when they’re stuck and need a lead.
“These cases are, for the most part, cases where the investigative process has pursued every avenue we possibly could and we need the public’s help,” said Austin police officer Paul Chavez, with the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force, who is one of several law enforcement agents who retrieve information through Capital Area Crime Stoppers, the Travis County chapter of the organization.
Chavez and other Crime Stoppers officials in Austin say the program — which keeps tipsters anonymous and offers cash rewards of up to $1,000 when a tip leads to an arrest — helps officers investigate and solve past crimes and potentially halt future ones.
Crime Stoppers often brings in tips about notorious Austin cases, such as when a tip led to the arrest of Sean O’Brien, who is accused of robbing four Austin-area convenience stores with a Roman candle and a hammer, Chavez said.
Police were glad to receive this tip because they believed the robber would continue committing crimes, and officers were concerned that a future incident could end violently, said Austin police officer Marc McLeod, who manages the Capital Area Crime Stoppers tips.
“When we have someone — for instance, the Roman candle guy, someone that we can’t identify,
that’s on a series — we never know how much it’s going to escalate,” McLeod said. “He starts off with a Roman candle, the next thing it’s a hammer, and we don’t know what innocent person might walk in.”
Crime Stoppers tips led police to conclude that 29-year-old Esmeralda Barrera was killed by James Loren Brown on New Year’s Day 2012. A recent tip also led police to stop a vehicle and find 74.32 kilograms of the drug K2 — which police said is worth an estimated $1.1 million — in Central Austin on Nov. 5, Chavez said.
Each year since 2014, Capital Area Crime Stoppers has paid an average of $60,000 to $80,000 to more than 100 anonymous tipsters, said Diana Dukes, the program’s executive director.
Not all tips lead to an arrest, so not all tips lead to a reward, Dukes said. In an average month, Capital Area Crime Stoppers gets 200 to 300 tips, Dukes said.
“If there’s a particular big crime that’s getting a lot of attention and it’s generating tips, it can be 700 or 800 a month,” she said.
Most of these tips do not lead to an arrest. To put it in perspective, Capital Area Crime Stoppers has received 1,422 tips so far in 2017. Of these, 127 have led to an arrest.
Still, officials said 127 successful tips is a huge help as officers seek to solve crimes. Last year, the organization surpassed the $1-million mark in rewards paid since Capital Area Crime Stoppers was founded, she said.
As long as a tipster’s information leads to an arrest on a felony or violent misdemeanor that happened in Travis County, and as long as he or she was the first person to share that information, the tipster is eligible for a reward of up to $1,000, Dukes said. In some situations where two people have shared valuable information, Crime Stoppers will reward both tipsters.
Austin police calculate reward amounts based on a Crime Stoppers’ algorithm. For example, tips about violent crimes often lead to higher rewards than tips about property crimes.
The reward is an obvious incentive for tipsters to come forward with information, Dukes said, but another reason people sometimes turn to Crime Stoppers instead of local police agencies is the organization’s promise of anonymity.
“You’re never going to have to give your name,” Dukes said. “No one’s ever going to make you testify. You’re not going to be contacted. So the more dangerous — or even close to home — the crime is, the more they rely on that anonymity . ... We’re legally obligated to protect that person’s identity.”
The organization has encryption down to a science, Dukes said. Callers are directed — sans caller ID — to a call center in an undisclosed location. The dispatchers take the information the tipster has to share, and then dispatchers share that information with the correct police agency.
If tipsters communicate instead through the Crime Stoppers website or phone app, that’s done through an encrypted website, and the tip goes directly to the Austin police intelligence unit. Of all the modes of communication, Chavez said, officers prefer the Crime Stoppers app — called P3 Tips — because officers can communicate back and forth directly with the tipster and not have to exchange any contact information.
Even the reward is given anonymously. When tipsters share information, they’re given a confirmation number and a phone number they can call to check the status of their tip and find out if it made them eligible for a reward, Dukes said.
If it did, and their reward is approved, tipsters are given a tip number and a code word, as well as a time and date to pick up their cash at a bank drive-thru, she said.
The organization raises money for these rewards through donations and fundraisers such as the organization’s annual golf tournament. In addition, people found guilty in Travis County Criminal Court must pay a $30 court fee, which goes to Crime Stoppers rewards, she said.
Chavez said he and the other Austin investigators are grateful that an institution like Crime Stoppers exists to handle the logistics of tip retrieval while the police handle the investigating.
“There’s sometimes only so much we can do with the information we have,” Chavez said. “Usually the biggest cases, the most important cases — the homicides, the robberies — a large chunk of them get solved with the help of Crime Stoppers.”