The success of Metro Crime Stoppers, a non-profit volunteer group that provides rewards for tips that help clear crimes, has been a little too good.
The group, which broadcasts television re-enactments of crimes in Baltimore City and four suburban counties, including Harford, has been paying out more reward money than it has been receivingin donations, said Barbara Long, administrative coordinator for Metro Crime Stoppers.
"Crime Stoppers has been so very successful that we are literallygoing out of business," Long said. "We are in need of funds. There are no two ways about it."
Michael J. Agetstein, chairman of the group's board of directors, said Crime Stoppers has about $10,000 remaining in its till -- enough to pay for rewards and operating expenses for another eight months.
Metro Crime Stoppers, like other volunteer agencies in the Baltimore area, is scrambling for donations as companies and citizens have reduced charitable contributions in the leaneconomic times, Agetstein said.
Despite the budget crunch, Long said, Crime Stoppers is expected to continue broadcasting crime re-enactments and paying rewards for tips until more donations come in. Several fund-raisers are planned to start this summer,she said.
An example of how broadcasting re-enactments and offering rewards generatetips for police investigations occurred in January when Crime Stoppers featured an unsolved Harford case of a Nov. 23, 1990, beating and robbery of a Joppatowne man. The victim had been attacked by two men.
Metro Crime Stoppers publicized the incident, re-enacting the event on television and offering a reward.
One day after the television broadcast, a tipster called Metro Crime Stoppers' hot line, providing the nickname of a man as a possible suspect. The informant calledthe hot line again, giving the suspect's address and the full name of a second suspect.
Using the information, detectives arrested thesuspects and charged them with robbery and assault with intent to murder. The informant got a $500 reward.
The beating is just one of more than 1,200 cases Crime Stoppers helped police clear in metropolitan Baltimore since the organization formed in 1981, Long said.
Last year, Metro Crime Stoppers paid 66 rewards totaling $25,450 -- double the 1989 number of 33 rewards totaling $12,225, according to statistics provided by the non-profit group.
