ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – With a rise in school threats and students bringing guns to campus, Albuquerque Metro Crime Stoppers and Albuquerque Public Schools are now teaming up with a new plan urging students to send detectives anonymous crime tips.
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“I’m hoping it encourages kids to open up anonymously, report, make some money, and help us get some of these guns off our juvenile offenders,” said Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina.
Medina said this will renew their effort to get students to report crimes anonymously. A similar program first popped up in 2009 called Campus Crime Stoppers but Chief Medina said over the years it ceased to exist. He said the partnership comes at a time when a handful of students statewide have been arrested and accused of gun crimes.
“We do have issues. Recently, it seems we had issues of shootings all the way down to middle school. We have incidents where we have very young kids committing crimes in elementary schools. This will be available at all APS schools.”
Just last week, a Volcano Vista High student was arrested for having two guns in his possession on campus. And last month off campus, APD arrested 16-year-old Jeremy Jones accusing him of shooting and killing a man during an attempted car burglary.
“It’s those types of situations where an individual in high school can report one of these youthful individuals who has a firearm,” said Chief Medina.
APD said it hopes to iron out the details of what the partnership will look like in schools over the next few weeks.
“We are going to be giving kids a text option. There’ll be a QR code that they could access crime stoppers through and they will also have a link on the APS website that kids can link into to report this anonymous information to law enforcement.”
APS Superintendent Gabriella Blakey revealed the partnership in a newsletter Wednesday morning but the district wouldn’t interview about the plans. Crime Stoppers said students are eligible for more than $2,000 for any credible, anonymous tips.
APD said students can already make tips by texting. To make a tip through text, students can text ABQCS to 738477.
