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Clear Channel and Metro Crime Stoppers have teamed up on a “gun tip hotline,” to “get the illegal, functioning fire arms off the streets of Baltimore City,” NBC’s WBAL TV 11 reported Tuesday. The program will reward anonymous tipsters with $500 for each “illegal” gun recovered, and $500 for each felony arrest.
“This is to promote a gun bounty program that Metro Crime Stoppers is promoting and it’s asking people to turn in their guns,” Steve Ginsburg of Clear Channel explained. “We’ll be running it on five billboards around the city for a year that Clear Channel is donating space for.”
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Anthony Batts were on hand at the media event, which appeared to draw about as many onlookers, assuming they weren’t all speakers, staffers and reporters, as there are news accounts at this writing. Both spoke with high expectations for the program to do what it promises.
How those expectations can be substantiated with real world results was unstated. Such programs have been implemented in other major urban centers over the years, and while wildly successful figures are claimed, such as “an average conviction rate of approximately 95% on cases solved by a tip to the program,” a means to validate how those rates were established and what they mean in terms of real numbers and real reductions in violent crimes remains unclear.
What is clear is the promise of a reward and the guarantee that the person receiving it will not have to provide their name lends itself to the potential for abuse. Not only could gangland competitors be effectively removed, an opportunistic criminal could reap rewards for phoning such a calculated tip in, including the possibility of exploiting unsuspecting police to permanently eliminate reported rivals. Also unstated is what safeguards are in place to ensure rogue law enforcement officers don’t themselves create a tip to do an end run around Fourth Amendment protections, artificially establishing phony “probable cause” opportunities for stops, searches and seizures that would otherwise not present themselves.
Of minor relative importance, but nonetheless noteworthy, particularly if claimed success rates actually result in significant aggregated numbers, is the issue of rewards being taxable income. Crime Stoppers in Metro Richmond punt that ball, advising “enquiring minds” that they’ll remain anonymous, but avoiding disclosure if they will be in violation of federal or state laws for failure to report money received.
Of more significance, particularly with national focus on events in Ferguson and a renewed concern with demographics targeted by law enforcement, is if paid, anonymous “snitch” line programs will have a disproportionate impact on suspects of color, and if that impact will include further incidents where deadly force ends up applied. That would hardly be consistent with responsive statements made by Mayor Rawlings-Blake about “very little, if any, trust between communities of color and the elected officials [and] a lack of transparency.”
A law enforcement net that predominantly ensnares young black men would also seem to negate Clear Channel’s public commitment to a “ZERO TOLERANCE policy that prohibits discrimination [and] extends beyond our employees.” With accusations of iHeartRadio being iHateRadio for its association with Rush Limbaugh, and with those resulting in petitions and boycotts, the corporation could be inviting further “progressive” and minority ire if tip line abuses result in informant-precipitated minority homicides by police, even if officers involved are later absolved of wrongdoing like Officer Darren Wilson.
Starvin Larry 