Real-time crime center helps Glendale (Ariz.) police ‘do more with less,’ chief says

Real-time crime center technology integrated with other resources can help improve public-safety agencies improve efficiency while enhancing the safety of citizens and first responders, according to Glendale (Ariz.) Police Department Chief Chris Briggs.

Brigg said the Glendale Police Department has been operating its real-time crime center (RTCC) since 2018, when the center primarily received and processed video from traffic cameras. Today, the Glendale RTCC is able to receive video and sensor information from a variety of sources—from private enterprises to public schools—while being able to integrate such information with real-time data from 911 calls through the RTCC’s CommandCentral Aware platform from Motorola Solutions, he said.

Being able to accept, process and evaluate all of these information sources on a single platform has proven to be a powerful solution—the kind of offering that the Glendale police department seeks, Brigg said.

“We are committed to being on the edge of technology, if it makes sense,” Briggs said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “There’s a lot of technology that’s kind of cool to have, but if it doesn’t provide safety, situational awareness to the officers, or make us more efficient or timely in our response to the community, then it probably doesn’t make sense.

“That’s how we look at technology. How does it better serve us to serve our community, and do it in a safer, more efficient manner?”

A key enhancement for the Glendale police department has been the ability for the RTCC personnel to listen to 911 calls in real time—through Motorola Solutions’ VESTA 9-1-1 and SmartTranscription solutions—to jumpstart responses, according to Briggs.

“Our operators in the center can now either listen or read transcripts as a call is coming in through the 911, so they’re getting information before the dispatcher gets it and certainly before the officers get it,” he said.

Briggs said such an edge can be critical, citing an example of a response to a homicide. Upon reading the real-time transcript of the 911 call for the incident, Glendale RTCC personnel were able to take key actions quickly enough to enable apprehension of the suspect, he said.

“They were looking at the transcript, see that it’s a homicide, they hear that the suspect left in a car,” Briggs said. “They pulled up the cameras to watch the exits from that neighborhood, and they were able to see the suspect, the car, the direction of travel, and they were able to start following it.

“We had eyes on [the suspect vehicle] before it left our city, and we had that 60-75 seconds before the call was even dispatched. And if we hadn’t, then the camera wouldn’t have been in the place to pick it up.”

Such a result would have been extremely difficult to execute under the normal 911 and dispatch procedures, simply because of the processing time required by traditional systems, Briggs said.

“Everyone thinks you call 911 and immediately officers are going [to the incident scene], but the 911 operator has to triage the call, they have to get out the information—sending it by typing new information in, as it’s going to dispatch—and then dispatch has to dispatch it,” Briggs said. “And if it’s a busy day, … it can be several seconds—even minutes—before that call is dispatched, because maybe an officer is screaming for help and you’re holding the air to wait for the call to be dispatched.
“With Live911 now, real-time crime [center personnel] is working that call. [Officers] are on scene almost immediately, and they’re giving the information to the officers. That’s what’s great about real-time crime—you’re giving the most updated information as it’s occurring, and it’s coming from a trusted source.”

Briggs noted that such functionality helps the Glendale Police Department “do more with less,” offering another scenario to reinforce the real-world implications of the RTCC’s capabilities on response efforts and resource allocations.

“Before real-time crime, if a guy robs a store, officers respond to the store and get information that he left,” Briggs said. “So, you set up a perimeter, call in K-9s, and you have 6 to 12 cop cars spread out, blocking the perimeter.

“With real-time crime [center inputs], you get the information, you put the camera on it, you pick up the suspect [on video], and you’re following the suspect. Now, you’re directing your officers to the suspect immediately, get them in custody, go to the store and start your report. You’re using two or three officers for that, instead of 12.”

Such efficiencies are not limited to the actual response effort, Brigg said. Leveraging technologies can greatly reduce the amount of time officers have to spend investigating incidents or appearing in court, allowing them to spend more time in the community to help ensure the safety of citizens, he said.

“Our traffic accidents are caught on camera, especially the intersection ones, because that’s where the cameras default,” Briggs said. “Normally, it’s [a debate between drivers about] ‘I had the green light’ and ‘No, I had the green light.’ But we have it on camera. The officer doesn’t have to try to figure it out, determine who is the most believable and how many witnesses do we need. They are able to show the violator that ‘You ran a red light.’ It has cut down on our court—people aren’t fighting it, because there’s video.

“That means an officer isn’t being pulled off the street—and are not available for a call for service—because they have to go to court. So, there are little things like that that make it cost-effective.”

Making this possible are a host of RTCC technologies from Motorola Solutions, which has been a “phenomenal partner” for the Glendale Police Department, Briggs said. And the RTCC capabilities should be flexible enough to support new data inputs as technologies evolve in the future, he said.

“I am confident that what we have—with our Aware system, with our VESTA system from Motorola, the Avigilon equipment and other equipment—we can ingest it, we can adapt, and we can enhance,” Briggs said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll figure out a way to do it, it’s just figuring out the steps that need to be taken to do it.”

Dave Wilson, Motorola Solutions public-safety advisor and former assistant chief of police for the Ventura (Calif.) Police Department, said he is impressed with the Glendale Police Department’s RTCC and overall willingness to consider, evaluate and integrate new technologies into its operations.

“Glendale is unique, because they have a very robust way of looking at technology,” Wilson said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “Over the years, they have hosted hundreds of tours from different agencies, because they’re so good at bringing this data in, making sense of it, and getting the information out to first responders.

“That’s what we’re going to really highlight—the ability to bring all of these technologies together in one platform, and also to be able to share it with your neighboring agencies, so you can have that collaboration built into your day-to-day workflow.”

Working with neighboring agencies is priority for Briggs, who said he is encouraging a proof of concept with eight other public-safety agencies near Glendale to participate in a regional RTCC, as opposed to having each entity try to fund their own centers separately.

“We all serve the same community; regardless of who is paying taxes where, we are all serving the same community.,” Briggs said. “So, instead of everybody expending their taxpayer money on the exact same thing, why don’t we regionalize our real-time crime center, ingest everything into one place, and have people from each agency work in there? Because bad guys don’t recognize the political borders. We do, because we’re political, but we can erase those borders through technology.

“We have to set ego aside, we have to set politics aside, and we have to say that our mission is to provide a safe environment for people live, eat and play. We can do together, so we can be more efficient with money and be more efficient with manpower. That’s a direction we’re investigating right now, as a proof of concept.

“Technology wise, I know it can be done. If I can get schools and malls to ingest our cameras, I know we can ingest city cameras from another city … Really, we’re all doing the same thing; why aren’t we doing it together?”