Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 28, 1992 TAG: 9202280309
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IT'S A CRIME LINE ISN'T USED MORE
Violence. Sex. Drugs. Guns.We're a people fascinated with all of them - watch the TV, the mirror to our times, for proof - but we like our distance. Crime is an acquired taste.
Maybe that's why the Roanoke Valley has reacted with underwhelming enthusiasm to Crime Line. Created seven years ago, it hasn't wowed anyone.
Crime Line was created privately and still is funded entirely with private money. Police field phone calls from anonymous tipsters, and then incorporate them into their investigations. If the tip leads to an arrest or a conviction, the tipster gets paid - and still remains anonymous.
The system has had its moments.
John H. Wood, dubbed the Raleigh Court cat burglar, is serving a 21-year prison sentence for his crimes. A Crime Line call helped net him - and earned the caller $1,000.
Tyrone Dockery Haskins and Earl Allen Hale also are in jail. They flashed some cocaine around on a Greyhound bus bound for Roanoke, where they'd intended to sell it. A passenger called Crime Line and earned $500.
Police, tipped off by a Crime Line caller, charged a man with killing Ronny Grogan in Roanoke in 1989. Charges later were dropped when a witness backed out.
In Roanoke County, Salem and Vinton - which also participate - police have also gleaned useful tidbits of information from the anonymous calls.
The cases are proof that Crime Line can work.
But it doesn't often get the chance. In seven years, there have been but 600 calls - a rate of not even eight per month. Callers have received $4,050 in rewards.
"It's not being used as much as we'd like," says Don Seay of Salem, who is on the Crime Line board of directors. "It's become a major problem. We just can't get the bang for the buck that we need."
While citizens in other communities have jumped to help police in the street wars - to grab their little piece of life as seen on TV - Roanokers have been characteristically mum.
"It's a multifaceted problem," says Roanoke police Sgt. Al Brown, who coordinates the program within the police force. "The average person who goes to work in the day and goes to bed at night doesn't know much. We're trying to penetrate the criminal culture. We're trying to get them to snitch."
Many of the tipsters are partners in crime, or hold old grudges. They're part of the bubbling underworld cauldron we see only on fictional TV - a world that really exists, but is stripped of its network glamour.
Seay believes that police should more aggressively help promote and use Crime Line.
"We've had instances where Crime Line information never got to the proper authorities," he says. While there has been some advertising - all with the private funds - police have shrugged off, even discouraged, ideas for more targeted Crime Line promotions in high-crime neighborhoods.
Roanoke Police Chief M. David Hooper insists police do take Crime Line seriously, and do what they can to promote it.
Small solace to Seay.
"We're really reaching," he says. "We're groping and we feel like we're spinning our wheels."