Birmingham Opens $3M High-Tech 'Real Time Crime Center'

BIRMINGHAM, AL — The City of Birmingham opened its $3 million Real Time Crime Center, a high-tech crime fighting apparatus years in the works, in a high-profile ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday.

The new facility uses real-time technology and data-driven forensic intelligence to solve crimes more quickly. Located on the fourth floor of police headquarters, the hub is equipped with 16 monitors, four auxiliary monitors, and 14 workstations, according to a news release from the Birmingham Police Department. It will operate 19 hours a day, based on analysis of peak crime times, according to a report from al.com.

A team of police officers and cyber forensics analysts will make use of among other technologies:

• Automated license plate readers that capture all plate numbers in views, along with a photo and the location, date, and time
• A central server of all images captured by the readers
• The ability to turn officer body cams and vehicle dash cams on and off remotely
• Improvements in the NIBIN system that helps analysts track bullets to their source guns

The center was used to handle a homicide in Gate City that occurred the day of the ribbon cutting. According to BPD Chief Patrick D. Smith, officers were able to pull up video, identify the person involved, and give real-time information to homicide detectives on the scene. Smith said officers were able to resolve the matter in five minutes.

““This is how the real world new modern-day policing should work,” Smith said Tuesday at a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of police headquarters attended by Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr, Birmingham Public Safety Committee Chair Hunter Williams, and others.

“Our system is now able to work completely together, completely integrated and upgraded to today’s standards,” Smith said.

“You all have heard me say many, many times over the last four years that when we address crime, we want to look at it from a tool box and we want every available tool in the tool box,’’ Mayor Woodfin said at the ceremony. “We believe that having the real time crime center is a big tool in our tool box to address and solve crime...To our officers on high-risk calls, it will not only increase their safety but the safety of the residents they were sworn to serve.”