Fairfax County from Fairfax County

It has been in operation for over a year and has been occupied around the clock, but on Thursday morning the police in Fairfax County, Virginia, opened their real -time criminal center for outsiders for the first time.

It looks like a mixture of a conference room and a computer laboratory. It is not as big as you can imagine and there are screens everywhere. It sits on the upper floor of the police headquarters and is located directly in the hallway, from which police chief Kevin Davis sits when he is in his office. And there is the department near immediate access to ongoing incidents that may become the news – and at the same time help the department to close more cases faster.

“Our mission runs on three things,” said captain Hudson Bull, who monitors the operations of the crime center. “Number one, we want to solve crime quickly. Number two, we want to give insights into critical incidents so that our leadership can make more sound and better decisions. And number three, we want to provide a virtual layer of officer security for our patrols who work on the street.”

The aim is to provide patrol officers who are the first layer of response to give quick information if someone needs help. So far, more than 6,500 cases have been affected by those who work in the facility – everything from a lack of cases to arrests of crimes. The district reading system of the district is also connected to the crime center.

Several monitors show huge cards and show where different cameras work and where there are different patrol police officers. An icon is displayed on this card when an incident is reported or if an officer activates his body camera on the streets, which can be derived to the crime center. If things suddenly escalate, an officer doesn't even have to press the button. Technology will do it for you.

“Our holsters have a sensor when you draw your weapon, send these alarms to us and also automatically records on your camera worn by the body,” said Bull. “We can click on it and go straight to the action and see what's going on.”

This gives additional eyes in certain situations, such as the incident last week when two officers were shot.

The police also lifted a crime in which a driver was involved in Dui. A witness was able to take a blurred photo of the pickup that went away from the scene, and the police could zoom enough to identify some properties. When an officer who laid the driver, turned him and saw the front damage on the truck, the lights were reached and the driver was not overwhelmed before trying to evade the police on off-road.

“If you look at the time frame there when the call came out when the suspect is custody – 24 minutes,” said Bull. “This uses the technology to accelerate the investigation and give our patrol police officers precisely.”

In another case, employees of the real -time criminal center saw an attack and a robbery outside a grocery. Officers arrived there in 70 seconds and Bull said that the suspect was caught before he could escape.

Bull pointed to a picture that shows him in an adjacent parking lot, and said: “This suspect will run and he won't get it very far.”

He said without the crime center watching it live how it happened when someone needed to call 911 and get the crime registered, and then that an officer appeared, the man who was released would have long been over.

“This case could have taken days or weeks to solve,” said Bull.

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