SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash — On Monday, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office celebrated the official launch of a new center that's intended to improve public safety. It's called the "Real Time Crime Center," or RTCC, and it's the first of its kind in Washington state.
Several monitors line the wall, each one providing real time, actionable information for deputies, investigators and law enforcement partners.
Amanda Vandenberg is one of three tactical analysts working behind the scenes to monitor and analyze information coming into the RTCC. She comes to the RTCC with 17 years working as a dispatcher.
"If there's a fight going on, I can zoom in and get descriptions of the subjects involved," Vandenberg said as she pointed to a mobile camera feed used in the RTCC.
One system used in the RTCC is Flock. It's a license plate reading system that alerts RTCC and deputies when a vehicle of interest is spotted. In fact, during the ribbon cutting event Monday afternoon for RTCC, staff received an alert for a stolen license plate.
"When those come in, dispatch also gets that and they have the opportunity to broadcast that out to patrol," Vandenberg said. "And if there's somebody in the area, they can pick that up and try and recover that vehicle or that flight. Oftentimes stolen license plates are on other stolen vehicles. So, it's worth a follow through and then we potentially recover a vehicle as well as the license plate."
The RTCC also uses mobile camera systems, which are retired patrol cars with cameras mounted on top. They can be deployed to different areas in the county. The Sheriff's office says they've already proven to be a useful tool in crime deterrence.
"I really enjoy the camera work," Vandenberg said. "We'll look at the closed calls and recent reports, find an area that has a higher crime instance and move those cameras out there. It's exciting to see the effect on crime they have on that area."
Sheriff John Nowels said the workflow for dispatch to deputies will remain the same. But he said the RTCC staff just have more resources at their fingertips.
"Members of the real time crime center have access to a few more databases but also have more time to dig a little bit deeper than say what a dispatcher previously used to be capable of," Nowels said.
He adds, private businesses can opt into the RTCC system through the "Spokane Sentinel" project as a way to get more eyes on the streets.
"It's a partnership with us and Flock safety, where the business gets a contract with Flock safety and then we ingest video and data through them. I will say that the partners who are partnering with us--the information has been valuable., invaluable, and there's no limit to the number of people we can bring in."
Sheriff Nowels said there is room for future growth at the RTCC. He said Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall even expressed interest in partnering with the sheriff's office at the RTCC.
"I look forward to ways that we can continue to integrate this technology with other regional partners," Nowels said. "This will be something that we will look back 10 years from now and say, how did we ever do policing without it."