City police to send residents electronic crime alerts

Boston is launching a crime alert system that will send text messages, e-mails, and faxes to residents when crimes occur in their neighborhoods, police and city officials said yesterday.

The system, run by the Boston police and the Internet company CitizenObserver.com, is meant to disseminate crucial information about crimes -- including times, locations, descriptions of suspects, and photographs -- into the hands of those most affected and those in the best position to help police find suspects.

Officials said they hope to engage residents, especially community and crime watch groups, as police fight a major upsurge in crime in some Boston neighborhoods. By providing sometimes instantaneous information and ways for residents to message tips back to investigators, police hope to gain a powerful tool in identifying and catching criminals. The electronic tips that residents can send back to police would be anonymous, potentially freeing some from fears of retribution for helping authorities.

``We want to send out information if there is enough to have the public help solve the crime," said Boston Police Captain Paul J. Russell .

The program, which is also being used in Cincinnati and in several other cities across the country, allows police to take the information they have gleaned from a break-in or bank robbery and post it on a website, where it is then automatically transmitted to anyone who signed up to receive the messages. The alerts are also available online.

Police yesterday, in their first posting, sent out information on a Sovereign Bank robbery at 474 West Broadway . The posting included a photograph of the suspect and a description of the crime and evidence, including a vehicle that had been recovered with residue of an exploded dye pack inside. The suspect remains at large .

``Good communication is an element to keep our city safe," said Boston Police Superintendent Robert Dunford .

The program is initially being tested in three police districts in Dorchester, South Boston, and Roxbury, and could expand to cover the rest of the city later this year, officials said.

The initial cost is about $1,475, police officials said. Target Corp., which donated gift cards for a city gun buyback program earlier this week, is paying much of the start-up cost, officials said.

The three police districts were selected because their residents overwhelmingly use the South Bay Shopping Center, where a Target store is located, said Dunford, who plans to work out the ``kinks" in the program and assess its user friendliness before rolling it out to the entire city. Police are urging crime watch and community groups to sign up to receive the alerts, and officials are hoping young people in the test neighborhoods will elect to have them sent to their cellphones.

Electronic crime alerts will be sent out only when police decide members of the public may be able to aid an investigation or when the information can help communities cope with crimes, the officials said. Crimes will not be posted if public knowledge of the incidents could jeopardize investigations, officials said.

``We will share information that we need people to take action on," said Joseph Porcelli, a community service officer with the Boston Police Department. ``There won't be alerts every five minutes."

In time, officials said, they hope the system can be connected to the mayor's emergency hotline and distribute other important city information, such as notifications about snow emergencies and school closures.

Officials yesterday said crime alert systems are being employed around the country, and distributed a letter from a Cincinnati police sergeant who wrote that the program had ``become an integral part of communicating with the citizens" of the city and credited it for several solved crimes.

The program is also being introduced in Fresno, Calif., and Fort Worth , where it has been used for six months.

``The old way just wasn't timely enough," said Lieutenant Dean Sullivan, a Fort Worth Police Department spokesman.

Some in Boston yesterday welcomed the system. ``I celebrate the police doing this," said Dorchester resident Bill Walczak , a member of the Columbia/Savin Hill Civic Association.

Adrienne P. Samuels can be reached at asamuels@globe.com