GREENVILLE—Just last week, the Greenville Police Department launched the first phase of its CityProtect program.
CityProtect is made to help law enforcement agencies put crime data in the hands of its citizens.
On the site, citizens will eventually be able to access their neighborhood crime information for free, and submit anonymous to GPD.
Currently, the GPD profile on CityProtect allows you to submit anonymous tips.
Lt. Ryan Benge said that the program will help the department to adapt and solve crimes quicker.
“We’re going to be using three approaches to it,” he said. “One is the anonymous tip module, which we launched last week.”
The next phase involves surveillance camera registration.
This phase will allow citizens or businesses to inform GPD if, and where, they have surveillance cameras.
Police will not have access to the cameras. But in the event of a crime, police will be able to pull up a map of Greenville and see where all of the registered surveillance cameras are located.
This will help cut investigation time down significantly.
The last part of CityProtect will involve crime mapping.
This feature will allow officers to enter reports onto the map for public viewing.
“Say we want the community to be more aware of a drug problem,” Lt. Benge said. “We will be able to tell them ‘We’ve had 15 drug incidences in this area.’ We can then publish the map through our site or Facebook to inform the public of what’s going on.”
Lt. Benge added that the program will allow citizens to weed through information on social media, and get factual reports straight from the department.
Although citizens can submit crimes on CityProtect, it’s not the same as calling 911.
“When people submit an anonymous tip, it notifies us immediately,” he said. “If they have an emergency, they still need to call 911. This is not a replacement for that. If someone is monitoring the program when the tip is submitted, we will be able to respond with follow up questions.”
Currently citizens can use CityProtect to report any crime in Greenville.
“Over the weekend, we got drug complaints, we got suspicious people being reported,” Lt. Benge said. “The sky is the limit.”
Lt. Benge added that he believes all three phases of the program should be up by the fall.
“We’re excited about it,” he said. “We want the public to engage in it. It’s easy to do. I think that right now with technology, we have to adapt, and move with the times. This can only help us serve the citizens better.”
Citizens can access the Greenville Police Department CityProtect profile here, on the police department website, or Facebook Page.
