Latest news with #TimeCrimeCenter
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Yahoo
How civilians are changing the way police work is done
Editor's Note: This is part two in a four part series. The other parts can be found at the bottom of this article. COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Inside the basement of the Columbus Police Department on 10th street, a unique partnership between officers and civilian analysts has formed. Civilians sift through hours of video footage to send updates to officers in the field to help move cases along inside the Real Time Crime Center. The crime center is room filled wall to wall with large monitors displaying cameras police have access to from across the city. Two analysts work at their desks inside the Real Time Crime Center (Chuck Williams/WRBL). Staffing the center with veteran police officers and investigators is a large ask, given the months it takes it get an officer trained. The answer to staffing lies in recruiting civilian analysts. At the end of a hallway in the basement of the Public Safety Building on 10th Street in Columbus, Ga. sits the logo of the Columbus Police Department's Real Time Crime Center (Nick Bentley/WRBL). According to Columbus Police Chief Stoney Mathis these analysts bring with them an expertise that offsets their lack of traditional law enforcement training. 'The civilians bring a different perspective because they don't know anything about the law enforcement side of it, but they know technology and we can hire some of these and they get criticized,' Mathis said. 'Some of the millennials, they come in there way more proficient in this technology than a lot of our seasoned police officers.' These civilian analysts are not alone in the center. Sworn officers work with the analyst to discover the investigative details the analyst may have overlooked. The rubbing of shoulders and cooperation helps form the culture of the Crime Center. The partnership is at the forefront of a fresh way to combine old school crime fighting techniques with 21st century technology. Sgt. Max Todd (Left) and three civilian analyst (right) work at their desks inside the Real Time Crime Center (Nick Bentley/WRBL). Mathis says the civilian analyst position offers a new way for people to enter the field of a law enforcement and protect their communities. 'These young millenials, although they are really, really intelligent, they don't wanna put their hands on somebody to arrest them.' Beyond the Beat continues in these articles: Part 1: Columbus Real Time Crime Center at forefront of dramatic change in policing Part 3: Real Time Crime Center offers Columbus Police information that leads to arrests Part 4: Beyond the Beat: How the Real Time Crime Center is shaping the future of policing Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Yahoo
Real Time Crime Center offers Columbus Police information that leads to arrests
Editor's Note: This is the third of a four-part series. Links to other articles in the series can be found at the bottom of this article. COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — When the Columbus Police Department's Real Time Crime Center began ramping up more than a year ago, some officers and detectives on the street were skeptical about just how much the cameras would help. It didn't take long for them to embrace the new technology. Listen Cpl. Antonio Burgess. 'It cuts down on investigative time,' he said. 'We can solve cases a lot quicker.' Burgess is a property crimes investigator. Listen to how he solved a series of burglaries. 'This guy ended up breaking into about at least a dozen convivence stores,' he said. Investigators thought the crimes were connected, but were not close to solving them. Burgess told the Real Time Crime Center what he knew — times and locations. 'We figured out his pattern,' Burgess said. 'He would usually break into these stores between the hours of 2 o'clock and 6 o'clock. … By him doing it late at night we knew that there were not a lot of vehicles on the roadways. So, with a lot of hard work we passed it on to the Real Time Crime Center.' An analyst spent hours looking at roadway cameras. 'They were able to give us a car, a possible suspect vehicle,' Burgess said. 'The location of that car pretty much – the same car now – matched all of the times and dates that these stores were getting broken into. … It would have took us months to go out and physically go up to stores.' The Real Time Crime Center also comes into play on the most violent crimes. Sgt. Adam Moyer of the Columbus Police Department has his own story of how it helped in an investigation. 'Back in the beginning of March, I had a shooting at Elizabeth Canty Homes,' Moyer said. 'An individual shot among an occupied vehicle. Utilizing the cameras that were in the apartment complex, the Real Time Crime Center was able to view the victim as he drives into the complex and the suspect coming from a specific apartment.' The city cameras inside the complex and business cameras outside Canty led police to a suspect,' Moyer said. 'And instead of weeks, it took just hours to feed that video to the detectives. 'My next day into work, within an hour of being at work, I had video footage coming from the Real Time crime center.' Sometimes it's quicker than that, according to Chief Stoney Mathis. 'Having a Real Time Crime Center puts that information together in real time and feeds that information to the detectives, almost before they get on the scene,' Mathis said. 'As a matter of fact, we have had the Real Time Crime Scene provide information to the police officers while they are en route to the scene.' Beyond the Beat continues in these articles: Part 1: Columbus Real Time Crime Center at forefront of dramatic change in policing Part 2: How civilians are changing the way police work is done Part 4: Beyond the Beat: How the Real Time Crime Center is shaping the future of policing Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WRBL.
