Cass County Sheriff Joseph Underwood Jr. announces that beginning Monday, his office will begin using an electronic messaging system that allows direct communication with interested persons who sign up to receive messages via e-mail and/or SMS text to their mobile device.

Individuals register at www.nixle.com and can choose how messages are to be communicated, via emails and/or text messages. In addition, subscribers can specify multiple locations, such as a home address, a business address and a child’s school address. The sheriff’s office can then tailor messages to certain areas of the county, if necessary.

The Nixle site is secure — subscribers will only receive messages from the sheriff’s office only or other communities/agencies of the subscriber’s choice.

The service is provided by Nixle, is a trusted entity with partners such as National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s, the Council of State Governments, the Police Executive Research Forum and a host of others.

Messages that will be sent, from time to time, include:

• Alerts — Critical incident information – information on major events, emergencies or things such as Amber Alerts, missing persons, etc.

• Advisories — Crime Alerts and Press/Informational Releases (from events in which we are seeking information from the public or a neighborhood that may be impacted by a response or have a recognizable interest in immediate information about an event)

• Traffic — information related to traffic problems or diversions or road closings

• Community Information — information about meetings that relate to public safety topics

Nixle is configured to broadcast to all persons subscribed to the Cass Sheriff Nixle messaging system or anyone following the Cass County Sheriff’s Office (casssheriff) on Twitter. Broadcasts can be configured to occur to all persons subscribed or within a geographic area around a particular address.

Residents, businesses or others interested in following sheriff’s office Nixle broadcasts can register securely at no charge by visiting www.nixle.com. In the event that members of the public would prefer to follow these broadcasts via Twitter, Nixle postings are automatically cross-posted to Twitter @casssheriff.

Information about the Nixle service can be found at www.nixle.com. The site provides tutorial information about its operation.