Metro Crime Stoppers has in the past 25 years doled out hundreds of rewards worth nearly half a million dollars altogether for tips about area crimes ? but now the local group itself could use some cash.
The shortfall isn?t serious enough to force the group to stop handing as much as $2,000 over to people who call in with tips about crimes or wanted felons, a Metro Crime Stoppers official said.
But the donations they rely on from businesses appear to be thin this year, said Earl Winterling, chairman of the organization. The slowdown is happening at a time when an anonymous way of reporting crime is as important as ever.
Metro Crime Stoppers, which serves six area jurisdictions, sent donation requests to 120 businesses around Christmas, Winterling said. They got exactly one $500 check back.
Then there was the lukewarm success of their Shred-it fund raising event in April, which took place in pouring rain and pulled in $1,000, Winterling said.
It wasn?t that bad, he said. “It was $1,000 more than what we had before.”
The group?s money woes come as police say some witnesses are scared to report crimes, thinking they?ll be branded as “snitches.”
“A lot of people are just not going to walk up to a police officer and accept a number” to report a crime, said Detective Vincent Stevenson, who works for the regional Warrant Apprehension Task Force.
Posting on lampposts and handing out 250 to 500 fliers on the streets with the anonymous tip line is “instrumental” in trackingdown criminals he said.
“It?s very simple. Money talks,” said Bill Toohey, spokesman for the Baltimore County Police Department. He includes the tip line on crime-related press releases sent to local media. “I do that because the detectives tell me it works,” he said.
A bill failed in Annapolis this spring that would have created a Crime Stoppers Trust Fund, by tacking an extra fee on certain court costs.
Not enough legislators understood what crime stoppers organizations do, Winterling said. People wrongly think the group is funded by and oriented around Baltimore City alone, he said.
