KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers is not a law enforcement agency. They collect tips, relay them to the appropriate agency and distribute rewards — all while keeping tipsters completely anonymous.
"We are just a way to funnel information to them and protect our tipsters by keeping them anonymous," said Stacey Payne, the interim coordinator of the East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers.
They collect tips about ongoing investigations in three ways: over the phone, on the internet and through a mobile app.
Phone calls are collected by a call center in Canada. There is no caller ID, so the people collecting the phone call don't know the identity of the person on the other line. Since the call center is in Canada, it is almost impossible to subpoena the phone call records.
Both the online form and the mobile app use a 'P3 Tip Form.' Users can submit a tip about a crime they saw, based on the type of crime.
Any user that submits a tip, whether it's online, on the app or over the phone, is given a tip-ID number and a password. With both of those, the tipster can continue to communicate with the crime stoppers or post an update.
"The only way we know who this person is, is through their tip ID," said Payne.
If the tip leads to an arrest, the tipster may be eligible for a reward, based on the factors of the arrest and the crime(s) committed.
The tipster can collect the reward at a SunTrust Bank branch of their choice, using their tip-ID. Payne said the tipster continues to stay anonymous throughout the process of distributing rewards.
Payne also said she filters information before passing it along to law enforcement, too.
"If you happen to give us any information that I think may identify you, even that you're a male or female, I'm going to wipe that claim from the tip before they even get it," Payne said.
The East Tennessee Valley Crime Stoppers hope that by catching criminals, they'll have less crime on the street in the street. She said that when the community as a whole works together to identify criminals, they could be less inclined to break the law.
"There's eyes out there and there's ears out there and you never know who's watching or listening that might just turn you in," Payne said.