Cops Getting Tips Because People Need Money

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RACHEL MARTIN, host:

Hey there, welcome back to the Bryant Park project from NPR News. We're online all the time at npr.org/bryantpark. We have given you the front-page story, the top-of-the-fold news you need to know, and now, we give you all those little bits and pieces, the little sidebars, the Page Six action. We roll it all up and stick it in a segment that we like to call The Ramble.

(Soundbite of music)

MARTIN: Mike Pesca.

MIKE PESCA, host:

The Dallas Morning News is looking for your help, your help, Rachel Martin...

MARTIN: Mine? Why?

PESCA: Your help, Josh Rogosin, your help, BPP listener.

MARTIN: What can I do?

PESCA: Your help combing through a mountain of just-discovered documents relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Dallas County district attorney, Craig Watkins, recently discovered a vault full of documents compiled by his predecessor, Henry Wade, when the assassination was first being investigated. Whoopsy (ph).

The newspaper has received copies of the documents in large, unorganized batches that could be a treasure trove of trivia or more for JFK sleuths, transcripts, letters, jury lists, rap sheets, autopsy reports, photos, all the files. The folks at the Dallas Morning News are saying, have at it. They have issued an open call to search through the documents online. This is, I believe, called crowd sourcing. Their one request is that if you find something, tell them about it.

MARTIN: Makes sense. So there's another economic indicator that has presented itself, a little bit obscure, but apparently, police are reporting that they are getting more tips, more people are calling into the tip hotlines in hopes of reaping some kind of award, reward for those tips. This is according to a report in the New York Times. It says more and more people are responding to slogans like, crime doesn't pay, but we do.

Turning in someone you know who's committed a crime can fetch anywhere from 50 to 1,000 bucks. That's worth your while. Florida's Crime Stopper program reportedly saw calls increase 30 percent over the last year. Another program in Texas reports a 44-percent increase this year. Calls to programs around the country show the number of reports at - up at least a quarter, 25 percent, and the calls are leading to more arrests. The programs also credit advances in technology, better publicity and community spirit for the uptick...

(Soundbite of laughter)

PESCA: Yeah, exactly.

MARTIN: In participation in neighborhood watch programs. We were a neighborhood watch house, my old house.

PESCA: How'd it work out? You get burgled?

MARTIN: We didn't get burgled. We didn't - no one even came to our door for help. I don't think we got any money. I don't know. Didn't really make that much of a difference. There you go.

PESCA: Yeah, then McGruff the Crime Dog gets a new leash. Was it desperation for money or just a criminal mind at work, when a Pennsylvania woman sent out her seven-year-old son dressed as a Boy Scout to raise money for a camping trip? Sally Ann Gombocz - maybe, I don't know - only collected 60 dollars - well, actually, she collected a few hundred dollars, but has returned 60 dollars to those who were bilked in the con. But she has been sentenced to at least six months in jail, and she'll have to pay 2,000-dollar fine and give back all the money.

MARTIN: That's sounds harsh.

PESCA: Yeah, and she also convinced the son that he actually was a Boy Scout. She has to perform - that is true. She has to perform community service. She has to take parenting classes. She has to go to counseling. She has to submit to random urine screening, all because of the Boy Scouts scam, which - the judge yelled at her, not only did you fool the public and your child, you made them unwilling to give in the future.

MARTIN: Ouch. OK. Here's one. Here's a news story for the ages. A taser duel in Colorado over a parking dispute is grabbing headlines this morning. A security guard and a restaurant owner managed to tase each other, simultaneously, in a fracas over illegal parking. The owner of Mamacitas in Boulder said he came into his parking lot on Saturday night to find that an employee for Colorado Security Services had put a boot on a company van.

That made him upset. From there, the story changes, depending on who's talking. Restaurateur Harvey Epstein says his van was parked legally and he tried to remove the boot with bolt cutters - does that even work? Epstein says a security guard aimed a taser at his mother, so Epstein pulled out his own taser.

PESCA: Oh, man. Imagine the last scene in "Reservoir Dogs," if it wasn't played out with guns but tasers.

MARTIN: Tasers.

PESCA: Stop pointing that taser at my head!

MARTIN: I can't believe so many people have tasers. So then, they both shot each other. The security guard Robert Strife(ph) says Epstein was threatening him with the bolt cutters.

PESCA: Zzzt, zzzt! You keep going on. I'm going to do the soundtrack. Zzzt! Zzzt!

MARTIN: A supervisor for the security company said the first person to pull a taser was Epstein's mother, actually. Boulder Police arrested Epstein...

(Soundbite of laughter)

PESCA: Zzzt!

MARTIN: It's not funny, (unintelligible) somebody - when they arrived on the scene, and charged him with felony menacing and use of a stun gun during the commission of a crime. He was released on 2,000 dollars bail.

PESCA: Basically, whenever they put a boot on your car, you can't attack him in any way, even if you think you're right.

MARTIN: Yeah.

PESCA: And that is your tasefastic (ph) Ramble. These stories and more on our website, npr.org/bryantpark.

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