student members of the irving high school crime stoppers board are starting a new phase
a good tip on guns knives or drugs no longer has to be processed by the board
and if there's an arrest made whatever and you get a hundred dollars automatically
No talking about it for anything.
The reward is picked up at an Irving Bank drive-thru window
and great pains are made to keep the whole process anonymous.
All the Crimestopper has to do is give the cashier a code word or number.
The same code given when the student calls the hotline to report a crime tip.
Last year, the Irving program cleared more than 200 offenses in 10 high and junior high schools
and resulted in 138 arrests.
$26,000 in property and drugs were recovered.
Not bad for the $4,200 in reward money that was given out.
We've had quite a few reports of weapons that we have recovered before anything has happened.
And only who knows what would have happened if we would not have had the program.
Before the program came to Nimitz High School, there was a fatal shooting in 1993.
A Crime Stoppers program then might have prevented the shooting
because several students knew the teenage suspect had the gun at school.
People are thinking, I won't commit the crime
because now somebody's going to turn me in for this stuff.
So the crime rate has actually gone down.
And Irving's students say a sense of security has gone up at their schools.
Ramona Logan, Texas News 5.
Thank you.