BEAUMONT, Texas — Anonymous crime reporting through Crime Stoppers not only helps solve crime on the street, but has also been credited with keeping Southeast Texas schools safer.
January has been designated as "Crime Stoppers Awareness" month.
A big focus for Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas administrator Jeremy Raley is schools.
Tips made to Crime Stoppers helped solve campus crime cases from the use of e-cigarettes on campus to cyber bullying over the past school year.
"There were 45 tips that came in just on vaping issues and that's just those," Rawley told 12News.
"You can imagine how many if you include bullying, fighting, theft, policy violation... How much that number would rise up."
Raley has been running Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas since 2018 and added Jasper County to the program in 2023.
"We cover Orange County, Jefferson County, Hardin County and Jasper County and those school districts out there," he said.
Raley speaks yearly at Crime Stopper campuses to calm any fears students may have about speaking up and making tips.
He also explains to students how the whole anonymous crime tip reporting program works.
"They can voice their, you know, concern through the app, through our phone call center or whatever. They're not known," he explains.
"And once the investigation takes place and everything's closed out, if it's a validated tip, then that student is eligible for cash reward."
He says the campus version of the program has been successful so far.
When the football field at Little Cypress-Mauriceville high School was vandalized in 2022, tips to Crime Stoppers helped out he says.
"We had a school where a locker room was broken into during a football game," he said.
"Over the weekend tips started rolling in about that. That Monday the kids were caught."
In addition to on-campus crime, the Crime Stoppers program has been beneficial for several Southeast Texas cities according to Raley.
"We rely on the community to be those eyes and ears out there and assist law enforcement," Raley says.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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If you have information about a crime you could earn a cash reward of up to $1000 by providing an ANONYMOUS tip to Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas.
Call 833-TIPS (8477) or download the P3Tips App on your mobile device to submit your tip anonymously.