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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque police launched a new app on Friday that allows you to file certain police reports, give crime tips and even text a police dispatcher, if, say, you couldn’t safely call 911.

The “ABQ Police” app is free and available for download at the iOS App Store and Google Play Marketplace.

The app also allows people to access crime maps and data, a police directory, Crime Stoppers, alerts from police and the police’s news releases and social media pages.

“Sometimes people are reluctant to be a witness,” Police Chief Gorden Eden said at a news conference. “If they see something happening they can actually take a photograph of it and submit it to Crime Stoppers.”

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The app, developed by MobilePD, cost the city $62,000. There are similar apps in Baltimore, Md.; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Ore.

People in Albuquerque have had the ability to file certain reports online, but that was through the city’s website and not an app.

“We don’t want you to have to be anchored to your desk to get ahold of us,” Mayor Richard Berry said. “This is a needs driven initiative.”

Berry said the app is an example of the city’s emphasis on being “tech savvy.”

“We are really walking that walk of being a tech savvy city,” he said. “We want to be engaged with the people that we serve.”

City officials broached the idea of emphasizing the public use the internet to handle low priority police reports, instead of calling for officers, about a year and a half ago after the city released a staffing study completed as part of a yearslong reform effort underway by police.

Part of the study looked at response times. And it found that because officers will busy with more pressing matters, tens of thousands of times in a year officers took more than two hours to respond to a 911 call.

The app also gives people directions to file complaints against officers to the Civilian Police Oversight Agency.

A video on how it works can be found at: youtu.be/eZI77_63Eng