Before it went live, the new Halifax County Crimestoppers website garnered two tips in demo mode.

That may be an indication of the success it will have, said those in on the design of the new site and its accompanying Facebook page.

“It shows to us that this is a need,” said Bob Agoglia, owner of The Computer Guy & Company, which designed the new site. “We’re glad to be a part of it and happy they came to us.”

(rrspin.com currently has a page devoted to Crimestoppers that features stories tagged as such. Within the next few weeks we will carry feeds of most wanted persons and public alerts)

Agoglia credited the work of Web Services Manager Curry Roberts for making the site easy to use and leave tips. “It came out real well. Curry outdid himself.”

Roberts said this morning the site works on the same software of the other websites the company has designed.

The most important aspect of the site was to have a mechanism where people can leave tips and do it anonymously. “That was one of the requested features as it’s important to be anonymous,” Roberts said.

The website has fields to give the type of crime, date and time, names of people and detailed descriptions.

That the site received two tips in demo mode was clearly important, he said. “That tells me the community is hungry to clean itself up.”

It means that while the site was in demo mode, someone had to do a Google search for Halifax County Crimestoppers. “Whoever attempted to get in touch with Crimestoppers visited the website on blind faith that someone would get that information.”

Now that the site is live it will, “Provide the average, ordinary guy a way to get in touch with Crimestoppers to help clean up crime in the area.”

The site is really a mixture of things that worked well with similar sites. “We took all those sites and mashed them up. We took the good from this and the good from that to come up with a site that I felt like was easy to use and easy to navigate.”

It was important to do a site like this in a way that would make it easy to leave tips while still creating a quality website, Roberts said. “Not only does it have our company name, it’s a tool for the community that will allow them to help make a difference where they live without fear of someone kicking their door in because someone heard them call 911.”

Crimestoppers, since its inception, was and remains a way to help people report crime without retribution or the need to appear in court. “It’s one of the ways to get involved,” said Roberts. “If you go to court, everyone knows you’re the one.”

There is also a mobile version of the site that allows users to submit tips from smart phones or tablets.

To go along with the website, a Crimestoppers Facebook page was created. “Facebook is going to be big as well,” Roberts said. “People are on Facebook every day and maybe on the website once a week. Facebook can be a very valuable tool for the public to help. It makes it really easy to share. If there is a missing person and someone is able to share, that information will spread like wildfire.”

Frankie Griffin, a Roanoke Rapids police detective who is administrator of the Crimestoppers program, said, “I’m excited. I think they’ll be more apt to submit a tip this way. I don’t hear a voice, I just look at letters.”