Residents of the City of Kingsville can now receive updates from the Kingsville Police Department about major traffic accidents, road closures, community events, and crime prevention strategies, as well as information to assist law enforcement in capturing criminals for crimes that have just occurred in their areas of our city through a service launched recently.

The service is called Nixle, which is similar to social networking website Twitter, and it allows police communications personnel and officers to send urgent alerts to cell phones or e-mail addresses or through web sites, Chief of Police Ricardo Torres said.

It takes about two minutes to complete the registration process and, once it’s done, users can learn about public safety events as they’re happening, officials said.

Accounts can be set up to receive certain types of notices, e-mail alerts can be turned on and off and textmessage notifications can be programmed for delivery only during specific times of the day.

Kingsville and other municipalities in the area are using the free service, the chief said.

Text messaging fees may apply, depending on users’ cell phone service plans.

“This innovation will keep citizens from having to rely on television or the print media to get information to them,” Chief Torres said. “The message is sent quickly within a few seconds. For example information on robbery suspects can be sent out so that citizens can assist law enforcement in apprehending suspects.”

The Police Department can find out how many people have subscribed to the service but won’t have access to the names, phone numbers or e-mail addresses of subscribers.

“We understand that it’s going to take time for people to get to know Nixle, use it and trust it,” Torres said. “We will strive to get out pertinent information in a timely manner so that the end user is well informed.”

“Citizens can go to the Nixle website, read about it, research it and see if the service is right for them,” Torres said. “We’re just going to keep using it to get information out to the community faster in order to make our department more effective.”

Citizens interested in registering for the service can visit www.nixle.com. Once you’re on the website enter Kingsville, Texas into the navigation tool and it will take you to information in our city.

The site also has a link to register for the service. Another way to register would be to visit the City of Kingsville website at www. cityofkingsville.com and utilize the nixle shortcut to get to the nixle website and register. Citizens having information that is pertinent to messages sent out via Nixle should call the Kingsville Police Department at (361) 592-4311 or if you have information relating to crimes call Crime Stoppers at (361) 592-INFO (4636) or Toll Free 1-877-KLEBERG (553-2374) where you can earn cash rewards and you never have to give your name.