It’s been up and running for over a year and it’s staffed 24/7, but on Thursday morning, police in Fairfax County, Virginia, opened up their Real Time Crime Center to outsiders for the first time.
It looks like a mix between a conference room and a computer lab. It’s not as big as you might imagine, and there are screens all over the place. Sitting on the top floor of police headquarters, it’s right down the hall from where Police Chief Kevin Davis sits when he’s in his office. And it gives the department near instantaneous access to ongoing incidents that might turn into breaking news — while also helping the department close more cases faster.
“Our mission boils down to three things,” said Capt. Hudson Bull, who oversees crime center operations. “Number one, we want to solve crime quickly. Number two, we want to provide insight into critical incidents so our leadership can make more informed and better decisions. And number three, we want to provide a virtual layer of officer safety for our patrol officers that are working out on the street.”
The goal is to provide quick information to patrol officers who are the first layer of response when someone needs help. So far, more than 6,500 cases have been impacted by those who work inside the facility — everything from missing persons cases to felony arrests. The county’s license plate reading system is also connected to the crime center.
Several monitors display giant maps, showing where different cameras operate and where different patrol officers are. An icon will show up on that map whenever an incident is reported, or when an officer on the streets activates their body camera, which can livestream back into the crime center. If things suddenly escalate, an officer doesn’t even have to press the button; technology will do it for them.
“Our holsters have a sensor in them, when you draw your weapon it sends that alert to us and it also starts automatically recording on your body-worn camera,” Bull said. “We can click on it and go right to the action and see what’s going on.”
That gives additional eyes on certain situations, such as the incident last week, when two officers were shot.
Police also highlighted a felony hit-and-run case involving a driver who was charged with DUI. A witness was able to snap a blurry photo of the pickup truck driving away from the scene, and police were able to zoom in enough to identify a few characteristics. When an officer who was trailing the driver saw him turn, and saw the front end damage on the truck, the lights came on and the driver was pulled over — but not before trying to elude police off-road.
“If you look at the time frame there of when the call came out to when the suspect is in custody — 24 minutes,” Bull said. “That’s leveraging technology to speed up investigations and to give our patrol officers more exact information.”
In another instance, staffers at the Real Time Crime Center watched an assault and robbery occur live outside a convenience store. Officers arrived there in 70 seconds and Bull said the suspect was caught before he could escape.
Pointing to an image showing him in an adjacent parking lot, Bull said “that suspect is getting to run and he’s not going to make it very far.”
He said without the crime center watching it live as it happened, by the time it took for someone to call 911 and get the crime reported, and then for an officer to show up, the man who was arrested would have been long gone.
“That case could have taken days or weeks to solve,” Bull said.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
