Posted at: 05/18/2009 8:18 PM
Updated at: 05/19/2009 7:37 AM
By: Jeff Maher, Eyewitness News 4; Matthew Kappus, KOB.com

School police hit the web to stop crime

Sgt. Paul Schaefer uses his computer to keep tabs on students at his school

APS police have a wealth of tips to prevent things like student fights and illegal activity�and they're getting the information from students' personal web pages.

At Albuquerque High, there are three police officers on campus watching over about 1,900 students. What the officers have discovered is that patrolling in cyberspace can be as or more effective than patrolling the hallways.

When Sgt. Paul Schaefer isn't in the hallways, he's at his desk checking students' MySpace and Facebook pages for any threats or hints of violence that could be around the corner.

"Anytime something is going on, usually we find out about it pretty quick," he said.

This type of monitoring is called "cyber-patrol" and officers at pretty much every middle and high school in Albuquerque are doing it.

Officers can only check pages that are posted as public�some private pages can't be accessed. But Schaefer says the public ones have provided plenty of valuable information.

"We've been able to break up a very, very large fight that was supposed to take place at the school," he said.

Police say if they can prevent fights, they can work on conflict resolution.

"We were able to find all of the people that were supposed to be involved, get them in the office and get it settled without there ever being any violence," he said.

So when about 100 students showed up to watch the fight between two students this year, officers were there too.

Cyber-patrolling could also prevent the next school shooting too, says APS Police Chief Bill Reed.

"The data from that survey shows that 80 percent of the people that do an active shooting incident have communicated that incident well in advance to one or more persons," he said.

Albuquerque High Principal Tim McCorkle said anything they can do to be ahead of the curve, they'll do it.

Students we talked to say although cyber-patrolling may fall into a grey area when it comes to their privacy, they welcome the idea as long as it stops school violence.

"I think it's a great thing. I think our school violence in Albuquerque is pretty high," student Deonna Smith said.

Chief Reed says in addition to cyber-patrolling, Campus Crimestoppers has been very successful in preventing crimes.

And students can text tips anonymously. For more information, or if you have a tip, call 843-STOP.