In the wake of a violent Fourth of July weekend Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy is announcing several initiatives to increase communication between citizens and police.

In addition to new Twitter accounts and online beat meetings, McCarthy says citizens who call 911 can now also send photos to police from their cellphones.

“If we have a picture of a criminal committing a crime, and we’re approaching the scene, we might catch the guy two blocks away,” McCarthy said at a press conference Monday. “Usually that criminal is not on the scene and our best officers don’t go right to the scene. They get the description and they canvass the area and that’s how they pick up the criminals so something like that would be an unbelievable assistance to our men and women.”

Photos will go to the city’s Crime Prevention Information Center, and then images with valuable information will be forwarded to officers in the field. The department says citizens should not put themselves in danger to take photos of crimes and criminals.