TIPPING THE TIPSTERS - CRIME STOPPERS' CASH REWARDS PAY OFF IN ARRESTS

Andrew Winters frequents a downtown bar where he began to notice a guy
coming and going all the time and spending a lot of time on the phone.
Cars would routinely pick the guy up, drive him two blocks, drop him
off and he would walk back to the bar.

One day Winters (not his real name) saw the man making an exchange
with someone out in front.

"It's not rocket science, you know, he's dealing," Winters said. "This
guy had a large customer base. I could tell from all the traffic."

He told assistant district attorney and downtown Ald. Mike Verveer,
who instructed him to call Crime Stoppers.

Shortly thereafter, police arrested Robert L. Jackson, 57. According
to the criminal complaint, Jackson had cocaine, marijuana, oxycodone,
Vicodin, hallucinogenic mushrooms and codeine, among other drugs, on
him. He pleaded not guilty last month and has been bound over for trial.

Through November of this year, police departments throughout Dane
County made 85 arrests as the result of tips from Madison Area Crime
Stoppers. Police have recovered more than $24,000 worth of property
and nearly $2,000 worth of narcotics as a result of Crime Stoppers. It
has also paid out $10,000 this year to its tipsters.

Winters said he would have turned Jackson in anyway. He has tipped off
the police a couple of times in the past. But this was the first time
he went through Crime Stoppers and got a reward.

"The $200 was nice," Winters said. "The money came in
handy."

What's more, his anonymity was never compromised. "Everything went
well. I gave them the information and they acted on it within a
reasonable amount of time. They made the arrest, I got the reward," he
said.

The way the program works is that someone with a tip calls police
officer Cindy Buechner at Crime Stoppers (266-6014). Buechner takes
down all the information she can and gives the caller a code number.
She never asks for the caller's name or number. The caller is paid
only if the suspect is arrested. The arrest doesn't have to lead to a
conviction.

Buechner then researches the tip and sends it to whoever is
responsible for investigating. Because Madison Area Crime Stoppers is
a countywide program, the tip might go to the Madison Police
Department, but it could also go to other police departments.

If a caller's information leads to an arrest, Buechner writes up a
reward request and presents it at the Madison Area Crime Stoppers
Board of Directors' monthly meeting. Crime Stoppers is run by a 15
member volunteer citizens board that decides what the reward amount
should be for each tip. It ranges between $50 and $1,000 and is based
on the type of crime that is solved, the number of cases solved, the
number of suspects arrested, the amount of property or narcotics
recovered and the risk to the caller.

Tipsters then call Crime Stoppers back with their code number to find
out the status of their tip. The board meets the third Wednesday of
the month and tipsters are told to call Buechner after 1 p.m. that day
to find out how much money they will get.

Callers pick up their cash at the U.S. Bank on the Capitol Square by
giving their code number.

"Crime Stoppers is based on remaining anonymous. I never take down
names. I never know who our callers are. That's why it's successful,"
Buechner said this week from her small police department office on the
ground floor of the City-County Building. A newspaper ad is posted on
the wall behind her with the faces of 16 suspects. Six of them have
the word "arrested" diagonally across their photos. The ad ran Nov. 12
and it's been a particularly successful one.

"You'd be surprised," Buechner said about the number of major cases
that have been solved through Crime Stoppers. "People would be floored
if they knew what crimes Crime Stoppers was involved in solving," she
said.

"But we are never able to take credit through the media because of the
fear it would expose our caller," she said.

Winters, the tipster quoted at the beginning of this story, was known
to The Capital Times, and was not revealed through Crime Stoppers.

Cracking cases

Buechner has been in the job three years. It is a four-year position
for a commissioned police officer. Buechner is leaving the post early
- -- Feb. 3 -- after being promoted to detective. Officer Pete Baio is
taking her place.

The Madison Police Department donates a police officer to the position
even though it is a countywide program. Otherwise, Crime Stoppers is
not funded by any government source. All of the money given out is
raised through fund-raisers and donations.

Buechner estimates that she probably averages 60 calls a month, and
this year, Crime Stoppers has taken more than 800 calls. The number
really spiked this summer because of the Kelly Nolan murder case.
There were 223 calls in July alone.

With the Nolan case, many of the callers didn't care about remaining
anonymous. People just wanted to be helpful and often they wanted to
talk to a detective, Buechner said.

Since its inception here in 1983, Crime Stoppers-- which is part of an
international organization -- has assisted in the arrest of more than
1,875 criminals and recovered more than $6 million in narcotics and
stolen property. It has issued nearly 12,000 code numbers here and
paid out more than $222,000 in reward money. The average is just over
$100 per award.

In that time, Crime Stoppers has helped solve 26 homicides and
attempted homicides, 24 sexual assaults, 193 robberies, 34 batteries,
649 burglaries and 475 narcotics cases.

Crime Stoppers has a program in Dane County schools called the Quick
50, which has been controversial in other counties. The program gives
students a $50 cash reward for anonymous information that leads to the
confiscation of drugs, alcohol or weapons at their schools. The
students tell their educational resource officer, who investigates.
The tip doesn't have to lead to an arrest, just to the confiscation of
items.

"Crime Stoppers has been immensely successful," said Police Chief
Noble Wray.

Former Madison police Capt. Mike Masterson, who is now the chief of
police in Boise, Idaho, started the program here. He was the
department's public information officer at the time, recalled Wray.

"As a testament to people like Cindy (Buechner), it has grown in so
many ways. First of all, it delivers on what it is supposed to do --
facilitating and getting criminals off the street by way of involving
the community," Wray said. "It's a perfect example of how important it
is to have the community take part in public safety."

Nationally, the program was started in 1976 in Albuquerque, N.M. by
Detective Greg MacAlese, who was trying to solve a homicide. A
university student working the night shift at a gas station was robbed
by two men and then shot and killed. Six weeks after an intensive
investigation, no progress had been made, so out of desperation,
MacAlese decided to re-enact the crime and ask for help through the
media.

The request for help aired on the 10 p.m. news and the next morning he
got a call. Someone who had seen the re-enactment remembered seeing
the getaway vehicle. The information was enough of a lead that within
72 hours police were able to arrest the suspects and clear six other
robberies.

MacAlese was able to convince the Albuquerque Police Department that
they needed this kind of help on a regular basis.

Locally, Capital Newspapers donates an advertisement with wanted
subjects in both the Wisconsin State Journal and The Capital Times
every other Monday. Community Crime Watch airs photos five times a day
on Cable Channel 18 and Cable Channel 12.

WKOW-TV Channel 27 airs a Crime Stoppers crime of the week on its 6
p.m. news on Saturdays. Abella Audio produces a Crime Stoppers crime
segment for the radio every other week. It is sent out to 16 Madison
area stations, which run them as public service announcements.

Making the lineup

Former north-side Ald. Dorothy Borchardt has been on the
organization's board since July and said every time the Crime Stoppers
ad runs in the daily papers, calls pour in. Some people see their
picture in the ad and turn themselves in, she said.

"We do need to do more fund-raising simply because we'd like to give
more money out than what we give and we have to keep in mind that we
have a couple of really big ones out there," she said alluding to the
Nolan case.

It's gratifying to see the wanted photos in the paper and the word
"arrested" over some of them, Borchardt said. What concerns her is
that police are not allowed to show pictures of their top "most
wanted" in the name of racial balance.

So, for example, the Nov. 12 ad features 18-year-old Jessica L. Roach
wanted for fraudulent writings and retail theft, and Kimberly A.
Upright, 22, wanted for issuing worthless checks. They are there
alongside Felix Romero-Ocotl, 30, of Madison, charged in October with
the hit-and-run death of a Madison Area Technical College student as
he crossed South Park Street near Regent Street in March; and James
Bohanan, who is wanted for the July slaying of 26-year-old Kevin
Cobbins in front of a duplex on Madison's west side.

"I can understand where that's coming from, but I still think the
photos and the names that are in there should be the ones that are the
most danger to the community," she said. "We shouldn't be looking at
the color of people's skin. We should just be looking at their behavior."

Buechner counters that Crime Stoppers chooses to show a representation
of wanted subjects who reflect the diversity of the Dane County community.

"More importantly, the media and community are most often made aware
of our dangerous wanted subjects through press releases. Madison Area
Crime Stoppers attempts to keep the names of these subjects in the
media until they are apprehended," she wrote in an e-mail, referencing
Bohanan, who has been featured in the papers since August.

Buechner said she is amazed at how many calls come in and how many
citizens are willing to help Dane County community be a safer place.

"I can't begin to tell you how successful it is," she
said.

Sweet rewards

Tax revenues do not pay for the money that Crime Stoppers uses to
reward informants. Instead, the nonprofit organization supports itself
with fundraising.

Madison Area Crime Stoppers board members will begin their annual
Valentine's fundraiser next month with the sale of chocolate handcuffs
and heart boxes filled with M&Ms. Roses donated by a local florist
will be sold at the City-County Building on Feb. 14 for the group's
annual rose sale. Crime Stoppers also sends out a mailing to
businesses and individuals asking for donations.

Ready to talk?

Police say citizen tips have led to 85 arrests in Dane County this
year. Got the dirt on someone? Here's how it works.

Dropping the dime: Those who dial Crime Stoppers tell an
officer what they know. They get a code number.

Hanging loose: Tipsters call back after the third Wednesday of the
month. If the tip led to an arrest, a reward might be coming. Average
payout is $100.

Collecting the cash: Tipsters anonymously approach a teller at U.S.
Bank on the Capitol Square, report their code number and walk off with
the money.