Thanks to a donation from an anonymous local couple, the Cole County Sheriff's Department has a new tool to help area residents - particularly those who are deaf and hearing impaired - to contact the department about criminal activity.
The messageQube allows residents to text information to the sheriff's department.
"Not only can we get text messages, but we can also get pictures on this. So if you were in a hit-and-run accident, you could snap a shot of the other vehicle's license plate and send that into us," said Sheriff Greg White. "We believe in a couple of months, we'll be able to get latitude and longitude information from this as well."
If you have an iPhone or Droid phone, you can download an app for this service or you can create an address on your mobile phone, put in messageQube and this phone number, 573-587-3243, which will allow you to text information.