The Selma City Council introduced a crime reward fund in July in hopes of encouraging anyone with information about recent unsolved cases to step forward.

City leaders deserve praise for starting the fund, and we’re hopeful that it leads to arrests in some of Selma’s recent unsolved murders. However, the city should make it clear how the fund will operate.

Mayor George Evans said last week that the city can only put $3,000 toward the fund legally, but acknowledged the fund can grow larger through community donations. Many in the community would probably be willing to give toward the fund, but need information on how to donate.

In order to raise as much money as possible, it would probably be best for the city to promote the fund somehow and have a running tally so that citizens could see how much had already been donated.

To our knowledge, the council has also not specified how the fund will be used. Will it only be used for murder cases or will other heinous cases fall under the crime reward fund as well? How long must a case go unsolved before the fund can be used to entice someone to talk?

Once that’s decided, how much money will be awarded to a person that provides information that leads to an arrest?

Also, at some point, the fund will play a vital role in solving a case.

When that day comes, it should be well publicized by the city that the fund helped crack a case that at one point had gone cold.

If used correctly, the reward fund can be an asset to our community by awarding those that help bring closure to these unsolved cases.