Milan police urge residents to enroll in emergency alert system

MILAN, Tenn. — Milan police want more people to sign up to receive emergency alerts from their department.

“It allows us to get the word out to lots of people,” Detective Chris Vandiver said.

Get alerts from Milan police on your phone via email and text message. It’s part of a program called Nixle.

“This is a technology era,” Vandiver said. “Everybody’s kind of married to their phone.”

Vandiver said they send out alerts about everything from weather to wanted suspects and missing persons. “If we’re looking for a suspect or if we’re trying to help find an elderly person, it’s very easy to have hundreds and hundreds of people assisting us in doing that,” he said.

Milan police said they have had Nixle since 2014. Vandiver said they already have about 800 people signed up to receive text alerts and nearly 150 people signed up to get emails.

“We’d greatly like to increase that because we know that just about every person out there now has a cell phone,” he said.

Milan police say Nixle is a free service. Vandiver said it doesn’t cost the department anything and it doesn’t cost citizens anything to sign up.

To sign up, just text MILANPD to 888777.

“There’s no spam,” Vandiver said. “We don’t send out any advertisements through Nixle. We’re not trying to sell anything.”

Police hope the alerts help solve crimes quicker. People cannot contact people through Nixle. If there’s any emergency, you will still have to call 911.