The Austin Police Department has a new way for the public to track crime in their neck of the woods...or anywhere else in town.
APD announced their launch of a new online crime map called RAIDS Online today. Officer Simone Graboskie is with APD’s technology department. She said the mapping tool will allow users to have their own input on crime going on around their neighborhoods.
“We are engaging the public in as near real time as we can, showing them everything that’s occurring in the city,” said Graboskie. “It’s one location on the map, asking them, ‘Tell us what you know.’ ”
RAIDS Online is a nationally based mapping system, but Graboskie said Austin’s map is different, because it lets people send crime reports from the website. She says APD is the first police department in the country to allow that. The reports go through a filtering process and depending on the severity of the crime, some post sooner than others. Crimes are color coded with symbols referring to the type and location.
