Interesting that a “tipster” helped corral two suspects in that May 16 NorthPark Center shooting. Now comes word that a Kansas City man is headed to Dallas to start a tabloid newspaper aimed at rewarding the public for helping cops catch criminals. Jump for the details.
The new tabloid’s the brainchild of Chuck Curtis, a former CEO of the Valentine Radford ad agency and chairman of the Kansas City Police Commission. Curtis started a similar, eight-page paper in Missouri called Kansas City’s Most Wanted about a year ago.
That biweekly, which features mug shots of Kansas City-area fugitives, is sold for $1 per copy at convenience and liquor stores there. Readers can receive as much as $1,000–that’s for rapists and murderers, the “brass ring”–if their tips lead to arrests, Curtis says. Nearly 80 readers have collected the booty so far.
Reward dough for the North Texas version will come in part from Dallas Crime Stoppers, Curtis says. The publication will begin life as a monthly here, printing at least 5,000 or 6,000 copies.
Curtis, who’s still looking for a distributor for the paper, is relocating to Dallas to be near his son and daughter-in-law, who just had a baby. But he’s confident North Texas will accept the venture as well as Kansas City has.
“We know it sells best in neighborhoods with high crime rates,” he says. “So we may start local editions in places like Garland, Mesquite and Richardson.”
6 comments
The guy might want to do a little research before he starts naming cities in Dallas with high crime rates. Like maybe South Oak Cliff for starters.
That’s great. I know of a whole bunch of soon-to-be-empty-during-the-week Quick newsstands he can use to distribute it.
Working names in the D empire:
D Vulge
D Tention
D Tain
D bags?
D Znuts?
D heads?
I hope they have a section called “Eyesore of the Week” with picture and owner information on properties that are in horrible shape.
I pitched Wick on launching this very concept in 1997 and was met with silence and the “Wick look.”