NEWS RELEASE

WORKING SMART - MAJOR CAMPUS POLICE DEPARTMENTS CHOOSE LEADSONLINE

DALLAS, September 13, 2004 - The campus police departments of Northwestern University, the University of Houston, University of Texas, Oklahoma University, Texas A&M University, and Southern Methodist University, among others, have all engaged the services of LeadsOnline, the nation's largest web-based investigative system, for the investigation of crimes involving property.

LeadsOnline provides law enforcement investigators a powerful, data rich and user-friendly search engine that allows them to rapidly comb tens of millions of transaction receipts from pawn and secondhand stores across the country, looking for suspects and stolen property.

Historically, campus police investigators have attempted to solve property crimes on campus by contacting local law enforcement agencies who have access to transaction records from area pawn and secondhand stores. Campus investigators would have to ask local agency personnel to sort through stacks of paper receipts or search a local database in looking for stolen property. These efforts were tedious, time-consuming, and often abandoned. Campus crime victims had little hope of either recovery of their belongings or suspects being identified and apprehended. "Before LeadsOnline, we would have to request pawnshop information from numerous state agencies, which made it too time-consuming for our available resources," said Detective Scott Gibbons of the Oklahoma University Police Department.

With law enforcement's use of LeadsOnline, more than 2000 pawn and secondhand stores across the country do their part by electronically uploading data to the secure LeadsOnline website. This makes needed investigative data available online to campus law enforcement agencies, just as it is for hundreds of city and county departments.

LeadsOnline has been proven a highly effective tool in solving a variety of crimes that plague educational campuses - from burglary to arson, identity theft and narcotics crimes.

Campus law enforcement agencies are regularly recovering stolen property using LeadsOnline - from musical equipment to laptop computers. In April, 2004, the University of Texas Police Department located and returned approximately $10,000 worth of musical instruments taken in a burglary from the music building. "As a result of LeadsOnline, we were able to recover the musical instruments in another city and charge the suspect in this case with burglary," said Sgt. Donna Maga of the Criminal Investigation Division.

For more information on LeadsOnline, visit www.leadsonline.com, or call 972-361-0900. To learn more about campus law enforcement, visit www.iclea.org (website for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators).

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