By Police1 Staff
BOSTON — “If you’re thinking about it now, you’re already behind the curve,” was an early comment from the IACP panel on “Integration of RTCCs with DFR and 911 Centers.” Moderated by Jamie Hudson, director of real time consultiung for Flock Safety, three departments walked through their different approaches, providing plenty of insight and intel for anyone looking to start or expand their own operations.
The panelists
- Nate Lange, Lieutenant, Elk Grove Police Department
- Andrea Cortez, RTCC Manager, Elk Grove PD
- Miriam Foxx, Captain, Chula Vista PD
- Todd Withers, Lieutenant, Beverly Hills PD
- Jamie Hudson, Director, Real-Time Consulting, Flock Safety
Tech stack details
The Beverly Hills Police Department walked through the tools they leverage. All of this helps build a “defensible moat,” says Lt. Withers. To cover 5.8 square miles, they use:
- CCTV cameras (between 2,500-2,700) and Flock Safety cameras monitored 24 hours a day
- Live911
- ALPR
- DFR flown every day for 12 hours a day
- ForceMetrics
- Fusus
- And Lexipol for policy services
Related: How to secure funding for a real-time crime center
Four considerations for building an RTCC and DFR program
1. Choose vendors carefully
“Find people who have done it before and pick their brain,” says Lt. Withers, who admits the vendor search can be frustrating. He emphasized getting a free demo to ensure the vendor stands by their product.
The process takes time, but it’s time well-spent to dig into total cost, integration capabilities, and whether the features truly fit your department and community’s needs.
2. Find the right approach
“Do a crawl, walk, run,” says Capt. Foxx. “That’s how we did it and what we suggest. We have four launch sites, but maybe your department, your city, only needs one...hopefully it can be data-driven based on stats and call volume.”
When using DFR as part of their RTCC approach, Beverly Hills, Chula Vista and Elk Grove have differing strategies.
- In Elk Grove, their approach is reactionary and they wait for a call for service to come in. Their RTCC operators are non-sworn, but tactically-trained. They staff with sworn DFR pilots, but also staff with non-sworn pilots as-needed to maximize coverage.
- In Beverly Hills, they do proactive patrolling, mostly in their business districts where there is the highest incident of crimes.
- In Chula Vista, they don’t do proactive patrolling. Their DFR pilots are all sworn officers who pick and choose which calls to go on and can often become the incident commander.
“We are in a game of seconds.”
3. Get and keep community support
A key part of the success in Beverly Hills is external advocates. “We have huge community support, we have full city council support. I think it’s a model for what can be done when you do have that support,” says Lt. Withers.
Keeping that support is critical as well. Elk Grove has a public portal that allows citizens to view the department’s drones usage. “For us, transparency is important so we have a portal on our website that shows every single flight, every single flight telemetry, case time attached to it,” says Lt. Lange.
4. Get dispatch on board
The drastic cut-down in response time is one of the clear benefits of an RTCC integrated with 911 and DFR.
Hudson, who started his career in dispatch, stressed the need to approach the integration “collaboratively with your communication center leadership.”
“You need that buy-in and comfort,” he says, adding that you should make sure there is “intrinsic value” caused by any potential implementation so the reward truly is worth the effort.
At Chula Vista, the dispatchers “absolutely love” access to DFR, according to Capt. Foxx. While the department has the ability to cut the footage if it gets overly graphic or disturbing, overall the dispatchers have appreciated getting information they normally wouldn’t have received. “It helps with dispatching and handling the calls.”
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