TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) – As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one. And in the case of the Real Time Crime Center, five agencies are better than one.
The new center brings together the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, the Tallahassee Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FSU Police and the FSU Criminology Division.
“To work together and go into this Crime Center in real time and listen to what’s coming in on the radio, what information we have, bring all of our resources together and immediately relay that information to the officers who are responding to the calls,” Chief Jason Laursen explained.
Tallahassee Police Department Deputy Chief Jason Laursen says the center will be open 24 hours a day starting Feb. 25. He says officers at the center will use all the tools each agency has to investigate a crime if it occurs.
“It will allow the person sitting at the computer to have multiple accesses to different technologies to read those notes and essentially be virtually on the scene. They’ll be able to look at camera systems, license plate readers, those types of things and provide that information to officers when they respond,” Deputy Chief Laursen said.
The Real Time Crime Center will be staffed by at least 4 people from TPD, 6 from the Leon County Sheriff’s Office and 3 from the FSU.
Deputy Chief Laursen says having a third party review information coming from the scene can help solve crimes faster.
“They can provide that information to the officers and during their shift they can look at the cameras in the area, look at the traffic cameras and find that black sedan that was leaving the scene and get a tag from that,” Deputy Chief Laursen said. .
Give this information to the officer, the officer can follow it up, see who it is and actually make an arrest. Instead of talking to investigators and getting warrants a day or two later, it could happen that same night.”
Solve crimes faster to make the city safer.
The Real Time Crime Center is located in the Sliger Building in Innovation Park. It will officially open on February 25 at 10 a.m. and will be open 24 hours a day.
