Today, San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon will announce a newfangled way to help stop crime. It's called Text-A-Tip, and it will allow you to do just that, text a tip anonymously to the SFPD. According to NBC Bay Area, "Text-a-Tip is currently being used by police in 40 states." Whoj is magically landed in San Francisco is anybody's guess. (Oh wait, you don't have to guess. It's because of Chief Gascon, who believes in silly little things like technology and THE FUTURE.) But the best place to use Text-A-Tip, it seems, is on Muni. Police Lt. James Miller, NBC Bay Area goes on to report, "told commissioners at a recent meeting that the program will be especially helpful for Muni passengers who want to report a crime without drawing attention to themselves." So, the next time teen thugs are mugging someone while everybody looks on, please take a picture of said thugs (provided they have picture-receiving capabilities) and send it to Text-a-Tip. (We'll update as soon as we get a police agency ID number. Which, yeah, would be helpful.)
This is potentially a really good idea (tm), useful to stop crap like this*.
* crossing my fingers the SFist server will actually let a participant embed a URL into a response this time -- if not, just check out the "Taggers Gone Wild" SFist posting from 7/14/09.
It's good to see that Wanda Sykes is at the forefront of this movement, no doubt texting the SFPD to report a crime against comedy
d00d poopin in alley
pls send help
kthxbai
Unfortunately just about every cell phone camera has been required to play a noise when it takes a picture due to crazy fears about people using them to take upskirt shots. I doubt that stops the dedicated Japanese upskirt aficionado (as I recall Japan was where this requirement was initiated), but it would probably tip off the aforementioned thugs.
i think most muggings are louder than the average cell phone camera 'click'.
Not sure what you mean by "required" but the iPhone camera is 100% silent in silent mode, which is the only mode you should EVER have your phone in. (This means you, Lady Gaga ringtone downloaders.)