Horry County and Myrtle Beach police departments announced today that they have partnered with the Neighbors by Ring app. The Neighbors app will allow you to communicate suspicious activity to law enforcement which aims to help reduce crime.

If you live in an Horry County neighborhood or the area that surrounds it, you can use the app to directly send crime information straight to local law enforcement.

And as Horry County Police Chief Joseph Hill says, as soon as police get notified of a crime in the area, they can begin to track it. 

“Through the Neighbors app, we get an alert and the police department of the jurisdiction that’s connected to the Neighbors app, and we have an alert, and so we can start the activity of what’s going on in there, reducing crime, and reducing the fear of crime,” said Hill.

Horry County Public Information Officer Mikayla Moskov says package thieves, burglaries, and a suspicious person are some of the situations that residents can report on the app, among others.

The company over the Neighbors app, Ring, is an Amazon company and works to create rings of security around communities with their devices and apps. 

According to Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock, both police departments have already had success with the app before today’s partnership announcement.

“We were able to take that video, we were able to utilize the other technology that we have within the city and be able to track that back to make an arrest that was involved in an attempted burglary,” said Prock.

For law enforcement, the partnership is another way to make sure the community follows the see-it-say-it rule.

“We can’t be everywhere at once, but that is why we ask when we talk about if you see something, say something,” said Prock. “That is what this will help us do, to be able to push out that video, to be able to encourage our community to call us when they see something so we can be there, we can respond and address. This is just another tool in our tool belt to be able to address crime.”

The app provides its information in real-time and can also send text-based posts. 

How ‘Neighbors’ Works:

  • Download the Neighbors app via iOS and Android by clicking here or by texting ‘MBHC’ to 555888 from your smartphone device.
  • Opt-in to join your neighborhood.
  • Customize the geographic area you want to receive notifications for (users must verify where they are located and cannot participate in other neighborhoods).
  • Receive real-time alerts from your neighbors, local law enforcement, and the Ring team that informs of crime and safety alerts as they happen.
  • View local crime and safety posts via a live feed or interactive map.
  • Share text updates, photos and videos taken on any device, including Ring’s home security devices.
  • Work with your community to make neighborhoods safer.