Anonymous tips net 9,500 arrests

Jen Lawson

Monday, May 10, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.

In the 25 years since Southern Nevada's phone line for anonymous tipsters debuted, more than 9,500 people have been arrested as a result of information provided by callers.

That number could be greater, but people who witness crime are sometimes hesitant to come forward, police said.

"Witness information is enormous in solving crime," Lt. Tom Monahan of the Metro Police homicide section said. "I wish more people would utilize Crime Stoppers (the tip line) than currently do."

Crime Stoppers is an independent, nonprofit organization that runs a 24-hour phone line where members of the public can give tips anonymously about felony crimes.

The information is passed on to local police and, if the tip leads to an arrest and indictment, the tipster can collect a cash reward of up to $2,000.

In the Las Vegas Valley, the system was launched as Secret Witness in 1979 with Nage Palmer, a Metro officer, at the helm. The name was changed to Crime Stoppers last year to make Southern Nevada consistent with other regions, but the system remained the same. The volume of calls has also remained steady.

The line receives about 600 calls a month, director Russ White said. About 200 of the calls yield tips that are passed on to police, he said.

As expected, high-profile cases result in more calls. Some callers provide good eyewitness information, Monahan said, and then there are others who have gut feelings, or say they are psychic and want to share their predictions.

The calls are answered during nonbusiness hours by a private answering service in Texas, and for years there had been a delay in tips getting to the homicide section in a timely manner.

When tips on homicides came in, the information was faxed to the Crime Stoppers office in Las Vegas where it remained until the next business day when it was forwarded to homicide detectives.

The lag didn't result in any arrests slipping through detectives' fingers, Monahan said, but because solving a homicide often gets harder with each hour that passes, the overnight delay was "enormously problematic."

The problem was straightened out last year. Now the faxes are now sent simultaneously to the homicide section and the Crime Stoppers office.

Timmy "T.J." Webber, who was convicted last year for the April 2002 killing of his girlfriend and her son, was arrested as a result of citizen tips.

Likewise, Kevin Martinette and Randall Stafford were caught via a Crime Stoppers tip in March in connection with the slaying of Terry Petropoulos, a bartender at the Odyssey Lounge.

More than $1.4 million has been paid out locally in rewards, but not every tipster wants money in exchange for information.

"A lot of calls we get are from people who are sick and tired of narcotics in their neighborhoods," White said. "They don't care about the money."

Last year the local Crime Stoppers board of directors doubled the maximum reward to $2,000 from $1,000 to the chagrin of Crime Stoppers International, which wanted Southern Nevada's reward to be consistent with the rest of the country.

But people would hear the reward was $1,000 and they'd laugh, White said. People still laugh at $2,000, he said, but with the greater reward comes a greater chance that someone will come forward with tips.

Crime Stoppers pays a monthly average of five rewards in varying amounts, totaling about $5,000.

A scale is used to determine how much a tipster should get paid, which White said eliminates bias and results in tipsters getting paid fairly.

If a taxicab driver is a victim of a felony crime, the reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of a suspect can be as high as $22,000.

Brent Bell, chief operating officer of the Whittlesea Blue and Henderson Taxi companies, established in February a permanent $20,000 reward for tips leading to the arrests and indictments of suspects in taxicab crimes. So far the amount hasn't been paid but he said "it will be a check I would enjoy signing."

Bell said he came up with the idea after a cab driver was shot and injured last year and more than 40 others were robbed at gunpoint.

"While Crime Stoppers does a wonderful job we didn't feel $2,000 was significant," he said. "We wanted to put out a reward that's life-changing."

In exchange for Crime Stoppers going through the hassle of changing its reward policy, Bell is compensating the organization by paying its annual phone bill, which is about $7,000 a year.