During a recent meeting of the Fountain Hills Coalition, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer, Deputy Jill Ochsner, updated members on the success of the Text-A-Tip program thus far in 2016.

The program is completely anonymous; allowing users to inform local authorities via text when something might need their attention. From alerting deputies to vandalism, disorderly conduct or issues on school campuses, Text-A-Tip has proven a helpful resource here in Fountain Hills.

According to Ochsner, 50 Text-A-Tip leads were deemed legitimate around town from January to August of this year. July was the slow month with 10 total notifications, with more than a dozen per month for the rest of 2016. March was an especially busy month for Text-A-Tip leads with 18, while May and June offering 17 and 16 respectively.

At the school level, seven leads were deemed legitimate so far in 2016. Ochsner said that local students seem to be taking to the program well, understanding that seeing something while not saying something only hurts themselves, their classmates and their schools. The fact that the program is anonymous also helps in that regard.

All told, 14 arrests were made around town so far this year due to Text-A-Tip leads.

Ochsner shared details on several of these incidents. In March, two incidents occurred at the high school wherein one student was found to be in possession of alcohol while another was in possession of marijuana.

In May, two suspects were reported for suspicious behavior via Text-A-Tip, both of which turned out to have outstanding warrants.

In June, Text-A-Tip helped shut down an underage drinking party where nine juveniles were arrested for underage drinking.

For those who wish to keep the Text-A-Tip number handy, simply save the number for CRIMES (274637). When you send a text to that number to report a potential crime, begin the text with “FH.” Briefly explain where you are and what has happened, and the situation will be looked into. Again, the texts are completely anonymous and, according to Ochsner, they’re helping keep Fountain Hills safe.