PHOTO: CITY OF NEW ORLEANS

Real Time Crime Center Opens in New Orleans

The center, which cost more than $5 million, is part of a citywide public safety plan.

• By Jessica Davis
• Nov 28, 2017

New Orleans public safety officials announced last Tuesday the opening of the new Real Time Crime Monitoring Center. The center, which cost more than $5 million, is part of a citywide public safety plan.

The Real Time Crime Center will act as a 24/7 command center for citywide cameras, license plate readers, and other technology that will be useful to public safety officials at the local, state, and federal levels. The center will be equipped to provide instant intelligence information to the New Orleans Fire Department, New Orleans EMS, and New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (NOHSEP) and their public safety partners.

In-house video technicians will be able to help law enforcement analyze video footage. These technicians and the data the center collects will support the work of emergency responders and incident commanders in the field, providing important information to quickly assess emergency situations and make important decisions in real time.

“Through the Center, we are able to act based on more information we gather in real-time,” said Aaron Miller, Director of New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency. “We will also be able to communicate better intelligence in real time with our law enforcement on the ground to ensure they are making the best informed decisions possible.”

Residents and businesses will also have the opportunity to connect with the Real Time Crime Center and register public-facing cameras on their properties. This will allow officials to expand their reach through those cameras as well as contact someone if a crime occurs on or near a user’s property.

Michael Harrison, New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Chief, believes the new equipment the center provides will help deter criminals.

“We will see you, we will know who you are, we will be able to apprehend you, we believe that will certainly give us the capacity to build great cases on the back end but it will give us a great deterrence effect on the front end,” Harrison said.