NEW YORK (PIX11) — The New York City Police Foundation is putting a new spin on the Crime Stoppers truck.
For 40 years New Yorkers have seen ads where the NYPD asks for the public’s help in looking for crime suspects. Now, the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers truck has gotten a makeover with state-of-the-art technology.
The new truck has been fitted with an LED screen so police can display video of surveillance footage or an image taken of someone who may have committed a crime. It gives detectives another tool while fighting crime.
The Crime Stoppers program has been around for 40 years and has helped detectives crack some of the city’s most violent and notable cases.
It helped solve the Baby Hope case from 1991, in which a 4-year-old girl was murdered, her body stuffed in a cooler and left near the Henry Hudson Parkway. She had been starved and sexually assaulted. The case went cold for years until someone called the Crime Stoppers hotline and left a tip that her cousin allegedly committed the gruesome crime.
Funding for the Crime Stoppers program comes from the police foundation. To date, the foundation has paid out more than $3 million in reward money for information that leads to an arrest.
All calls to Crime Stoppers are anonymous.
Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
