LeadsOnline Awards $2,000 in College Scholarships to Help Law Enforcement Families with College Tuition Costs

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“The Future Leaders Scholarship is just one of the many ways we get to show our appreciation to the investigators who serve our communities," said Dave Finley, LeadsOnline CEO.

DALLAS, Texas (PRWEB) June 27, 2012

LeadsOnline, an online investigations system used by thousands of law enforcement investigators to solve crimes, is proud to announce Devan Bowling of Middletown, Ohio and Brady Kennedy of Jersey Village, Texas as winners of the fifth annual LeadsOnline Future Leaders Scholarship.

The LeadsOnline Future Leaders Scholarship aims to support the effort law enforcement officials put forth every day to bring peace and justice to communities by supporting the educational ambitions of the next generation of leaders. A total of $2,000 in college scholarships has been awarded to two students who created and submitted an original video about the benefits of LeadsOnline to law enforcement agencies and crime victims across America.

“We were really impressed with the videos this year. We could tell each applicant really enjoyed creating an original production. The making of the video also helps students better understand the work that law enforcement investigators do every day.” said Dave Finley, CEO of LeadsOnline. “The Future Leaders Scholarship is just one of the many ways we get to show our appreciation to the investigators who serve our communities.”

Applicants wrote, produced and submitted a one-minute video designed to increase awareness among law enforcement agencies and public officials about the LeadsOnline investigations systems.

About the 2012 LeadsOnline Future Leaders Scholarship Award Winners:

College-bound high school seniors
$1,000 winner: Devan Bowling | Middletown, Ohio
A recent graduate of Middletown Christian High School, Devan Bowling plans to study radiology and learn how to detect and treat cancer in patients while attending the Kettering School of Medical Arts. She took a unique approach by staging and taking pictures to produce an “old-fashioned silent film” depicting how law enforcement can detect criminal activity that would otherwise remain a mystery. Bowling learned about the Future Leaders Scholarship from her step-father, Lieutenant Scott Reeve of the Middletown Division of Police. He said his department, on average, clears one case a week using LeadsOnline. Prior to implementing LeadsOnline, he said the department was typically three months behind entering paper tickets from local Ohio pawn shops and secondhand stores. Now, investigators in Middletown instantly access up-to-date transaction information, not only from businesses in their city but from all 50 states.

$1,000 winner: Brady Kennedy | Jersey Village, Texas
The son of Houston Police Department’s Lieutenant Sam Kennedy, Brady Kennedy jumped at the opportunity to create a one minute video about how LeadsOnline solves more crimes in less time. Kennedy plans to study video production at Lonestar College and hopes to one day work for a sports television station or be a pilot boat captain. The Houston Police Department was one of the first Departments in the country to implement an effective solution to combat the costly crime of metal theft by using the LeadsOnline Metal Theft Investigation System. The Department has had great success, and in one instance, they used LeadsOnline to identify and arrest city employees who were stealing copper from the city and selling it at scrap yards.

More than 4,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide use LeadsOnline to streamline the process of receiving paper tickets that were time consuming and inefficient in helping solve crime.
Receiving paper tickets from businesses like secondhand stores, pawn shops, and scrap metal recyclers ate up countless and costly man hours, resulting in a method that was complicated to search.

LeadsOnline allows detectives search for stolen property in a variety of ways including serial and model numbers, as well as descriptions. Because the system is a nationwide online network that secondhand stores, pawn shops and precious metal dealers report to, police have real-time access to the information, no matter where the item is sold.

Applicants are college-bound high school seniors or current college students in law enforcement families. In order to be eligible for the scholarship, a close family member must use or supervise users of LeadsOnline investigative services in at a subscribing law enforcement agency. LeadsOnline investigative services include TotalTrack, SelectSearch, FastFind, Metal Theft Investigations System (MTIS) and LeadsOnlabs MethMonitor.

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About LeadsOnline: LeadsOnline (http://www.leadsonline.com) is the nation’s largest online investigative system used by more than 4,000 law enforcement agencies to recover stolen property and solve crimes. Each day, millions of items are added to the LeadsOnline database by businesses including secondhand stores, scrap metal recyclers, pawn shops, and Internet drop-off stores across all 50 states. Those records are instantly available to law enforcement agencies. The LeadsOnline system serves as an efficient and money-saving resource for detectives because it provides a cross-jurisdictional, instantaneous, and accurate database that stops criminals from escaping detection by selling stolen items in another city. An official eBay partner, LeadsOnline helps prevent illegal transactions on the eBay website by giving law enforcement access to the world’s largest online marketplace through automatic upload of all eBay transactions into the LeadsOnline database. LeadsOnline also includes LeadsOnlabs, a system for tracking those involved in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamines; a Metal Theft Investigation System designed to track copper and other metal thefts; and cross-checks names of pawn customers against the OFAC SDN list of known terrorists and narcotics traffickers. Each year, LeadsOnline is credited with recovering millions of dollars in stolen goods and solving thousands of crimes that are often associated with bigger crimes, such as homicide, identity theft, and arson. Based in Dallas and led by CEO Dave Finley, LeadsOnline works with thousands of agencies throughout the country, including the Chicago Police Department, the Dallas Police Department, and the San Francisco Police Department.

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