North Kildonan community watch group goes high-tech with texts, mobile app

Residents in Winnipeg's North Kildonan area are usingtext messages and a mobile app to keep aneye out for crime in their neighbourhood.

This month, the North Kildonan Community Watch group started using an app that sends out texts aboutany suspicious activity that members have observed, including car break-ins.

Trevor Siwak, an organizer ofthe group, says the apprecently alerted residents to at least one person going through cars.

"Their spouse had just chased some guy out of their car and we put it through on that app," he said.

"It just happened one of the people who help us out with our patrols now and then was able to get to the area, and they managed to find the guy and alert police."

Siwak said the app is faster at getting out information "as opposed to somebody logging in to, say, Facebook two days later to find out one block away there was someone rummaging through cars, for example, during a time that they were maybe awake or in the area and could have kept an eye out."

Access to the app and messaging service is available only to people who live in North Kildonan. The group can be contacted viaFacebook.