Sidney D. Torres unveiled his new crime-reporting app with the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office at a press conference held Tuesday afternoon.
Similar to its French Quarter counterpart, the app will allow citizens to send photos, text descriptions, and their GPS location to law enforcement in St. Tammany Parish. According to WGNO, the Parish will test the application publicly for 90 days. If it decides to keep it, the service will cost the Parish $50,000 a year. This application will not replace the local 911 system, but work alongside it, St. Tammany Sheriff Randy Smith said at the conference.
In March, Torres announced that he would unveil his crime force app in one of the largest parishes in Louisiana.Torres launched the French Quarter Task Force app in March of 2015. Since launch, the the app has decreased crime by 45 percent in the French Quarter, the Task Force reports.
In June of 2015, Torres rendered funding responsibilities of the Task Force to the City of New Orleans in a Cooperative Endeavor Agreement. The crime-reporting app and security service are now funded by the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the French Quarter Management District fund though the New Orleans hotel self-assessment tax.