Data Driven, Proactive Response

Two public safety experts discuss how cities are leveraging video cameras, network technologies and interagency collaboration to build safer communities.

• By Ralph C. Jensen
• Sep 17, 2025

As cities face rising demands for smarter policing and faster emergency response, Real Time Crime Centers (RTCCs) are emerging as essential hubs for data-driven public safety. In this interview, two experts with deep field experience — Ross Bourgeois of New Orleans and Dean Cunningham of Axis Communications — draw on decades of operational, leadership and technology expertise to share how RTCCs are transforming public safety through innovation, interagency collaboration and a relentless focus on community impact.

Ross Bourgeois is the director of Public Safety Support Services for the city of New Orleans, in charge of the city’s Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), security services at municipal facilities, and the city-wide radio system that supports both public safety and non-public safety operational agencies. He has served the New Orleans Police Department for more than 20 years and was the first employee of the City’s RTCC while still in its conceptual phase. Bourgeois is also on the executive board of the National Real Time Crime Center Association.

Dean Cunningham served in the Fort Collins, CO, Police Department for 20 years before transitioning to Axis Communications, where he now serves as Public Safety Segment Development Manager. At Fort Collins PD, Cunningham led initiatives such as the department’s body-worn camera program. At Axis, he acts as a subject matter expert for law enforcement, monitoring current and emerging security technology trends. He also works closely with municipalities, industry associations and other organizations to advance public safety through the integration of people, process, and technology — driving collaboration, innovation and practical solutions in an evolving public safety landscape.

Q. What is a real time crime center and what has led to the need for RTCCs?

Dean Cunningham. The driving force behind an RTCC is the ability to synthesize data and make data-driven decisions in real time or near time. Cities and police departments should be making decisions with as much data as possible. Police officers and staff across departments can collaborate and make better decisions with that data.

Ross Bourgeois. In New Orleans, the RTCC supports the public safety and non-public safety operational agencies. We have a network of more than 1,000 cameras citywide and more than 200 license plate readers that feed back to the RTCC. On average, we get more than 1,500 requests for assistance a month from our public safety partners and about 70% of those requests result in evidentiary video for our partners. Every crime center is different depending on need. RTCCs are an added tool, no different than forensics and other tools that get cases solved with good old fashioned police work.

The need for RTCCs stems from the ever-changing landscape of law enforcement and the importance of leveraging technology to operate smarter, faster and better. It is no secret that police agencies across the country are suffering recruitment and retention woes, so you must make officers more efficient and effective, and part of that is leveraging technology.

Q. How can RTCCs strengthen public safety?

Cunningham. Some cities run into the issue of “this is mine and that is yours” and technology gets siloed for one purpose. With an RTCC you want to find ways to maximize that camera or sensor for multiple purposes or allow for an aggregation and sharing of data — not just from one city, but from an area or a region. Data sharing across city boundaries is leading to more collaboration at a multi-jurisdictional level because crimes do not stop at city boundaries.

Another thing people may not realize is that RTCCs do not solely play a role in crime fighting. There is a community element that is incredibly important. They might share a picture of a missing person and where that person’s license plate was last seen. Or they may play a role in disaster response. It really becomes about the community and there is great strength in public safety sharing information across platforms.

Bourgeois. Police departments may have a myopic view that their technology is law enforcement centric and one of the things that New Orleans has proven is that technology transcends all the disciplines of public safety — not just police, but emergency management and even public works or sanitation. One example is that, in New Orleans, which is below sea level, we have a series of pumps needed to keep us dry. On any given day that technology and those sensors that we use make all our departments more effective. We use our technology to make sure all our safety staff are more efficient and more effective.

Q. What are some considerations for starting an RTCC?

Bourgeois. Most importantly, you must have a mission and a vision and that will be a bit different for every single agency, but you must have goals, as well as policies in place. We had a goal of opening our RTCC in less than a year and it proves that when there is a top-down approach and the funding and political will is there, it can be done.

I tell people that you do not need the big, beautiful, sprawling facility that we must do excellent work. You need four things: a portable radio, a laptop with access to computer-aided dispatch data, some piece of technology such as a license plate reader or camera system, and a mission-driven person. If you have those things, even if you are following up one day a week or one day a month, you are doing the function of a real time crime center. You can do it right away on a small scale and once the community sees the advantages, you will get that support to leverage even more.

Cunningham. I have seen programs start without funding. If you have the will and the staff to keep going, even if it is a single person in the back of a cruiser and you take the crawl, walk, run approach, you will see the benefits and the program will grow. Figure out the problems you are trying to solve and then start talking about the hardware and software you already have in place and what you can leverage to solve that problem.

An important aspect that you must consider before going down the road of specifying products is defining your policies for technology, your policies for sharing data, and a memorandum of understanding within the cities and counties you are collaborating with. Setting expectations internally and externally for how the technology will be used will help build that foundation and then help to grow it.

In addition to considering the technology, you must consider the people, which includes whether center staff will be sworn police officers, civilians, part-time, full-time, etc.; and you must consider the communication, which includes how the RTCC will communicate with police officers on the ground and other departments to relay information. The communication piece includes how the RTCC will pass along data and evidence, such as through evidence sharing platforms.

Q. How can RTCCs gain community support?

Bourgeois. You build trust through opening your doors and giving tours to the community and citizens. We are a stop during our citizen’s police academy, and we can get those community leaders and groups to see what we do. You must be transparent about your policies and your guardrails, and you will get that support organically. Publicize the wins, be accountable to yourself and your community, own any mistakes, and be honest about what your program is not — that is your easiest route to public support, and you can dispel a lot of myths that way. The wins will come quickly. People will advocate for more technology because they will see the advantages.

Cunningham. You are not going to change minds in a crisis, and you are not going to build relationships in a crisis — that all needs to be done beforehand. I highly recommend whoever is in charge to become friendly with the Public Information Officer (PIO) and let them help tell your story and tell it often on social media, through townhall meetings. If you used LPR to follow up on a robbery or find a missing person, for example, talk about that. Be open and show the community behind the curtain so to speak.

Q. What KPIs or impacts can you use to measure the success of an RTCC?

Cunningham. When measuring success, data is king. Decide why you have a crime center and keep track of the time you have saved, the FTEs [full-time employees] you have saved, or the solvability of a crime. This will depend on what’s important to you, but once you determine that, you must capture that information and share that with your community and with your department.

Bourgeois. We use time savings and the ability to turn requests around quickly. We have saved more than 50,000 public safety man hours since we opened. And while I would submit to you that the number is impressive, I further submit to you that the total is not as great as the sum of the parts. What I mean by that is what is an hour to a homicide detective? How valuable is 20 minutes when you are looking for a lost child or 90 seconds when you are trying to get an ambulance to a cardiac arrest patient? I am prouder of those 90 seconds or that one hour depending on the circumstance every day.

The anecdotal cases can be so meaningful, like the case that probably would not have been solvable without our technology, but with the technology, there is a suspect in custody. The very first night we opened, we had a case where a group of individuals picked up a female along Bourbon Street who was intoxicated, and they ended up assaulting her in their hotel. Most of the individuals were from abroad and we were able to find the suspects and provide a video pathway of their whereabouts from that evening to the next morning. We were able to assist the detectives and make an arrest before the suspects left on an international flight. We step in when the seconds count and the moments matter and that has the lasting impact.

Q. How can an RTCC achieve interoperability between various agencies and technologies?

Cunningham. It is imperative to look for technologies with open platforms and ONVIF compliance. Platforms that are vendor agnostic will accept technology in the future and allow you to keep building. It is much easier than having to rip and replace a whole bunch of your technology because it will not work within your community and agency. If you have a closed platform, you will be playing catch up later.

Bourgeois. For us, among our public safety departments, we communicate fluidly through shared radio communications and an online data-sharing platform. We also use a platform that aggregates all our disparate forms of data and presents it in a single pane of glass so that our employees are alerted when there is an incident, and we have cameras or devices in the radius of that area. The only outside entity we regularly take part with is the state police and we are on an interoperable radio network with them as well so we can work together.

Q. Are there any technologies or trends you foresee for the future of RTCCs?

Bourgeois. The world of drones as a first responder is an area that I see as the next phase for RTCCs. I think there is an array of technology that can help with both efficiency and effectiveness.

Cunningham. I see an opportunity to really use all of that structured and unstructured data from cameras, sensors, remote monitoring systems, drones, and access control to its fullest, and one example of that is incorporating AI. The trend will be maximizing the data coming in and putting it into a usable format to shrink the timeline of investigations even further. AI can help with quick searches and mining the metadata to find attributes of a car or person’s clothing, for example, or anomalies in a particular location. With technology, we will be getting closer to the point where we can narrow down and shorten that timeline to the right now and that is exciting.

As Ross Bourgeois and Dean Cunningham make clear, Real Time Crime Centers are far more than rooms filled with screens — they are evolving ecosystems that blend people, processes and technology to make communities safer and more resilient. From humble beginnings to sophisticated, interconnected systems, RTCCs are proving that when innovation meets collaboration, real change is possible. As technology continues to advance and agencies become more agile and integrated, the potential for RTCCs to deliver faster, smarter and more impactful public safety outcomes has only just begun.

This article originally appeared in the September / October 2025 issue of Security Today.