LYNN HAVEN — Attention criminals: You can run, but you can’t hide from the camera and the vigilant trio of crime analysts at BayROC, the county’s Real-Time Operations Center.
Based in the sheriff’s office on State 77, three analysts — soon to be joined by a fourth — monitor the county through cameras placed throughout the county and a myriad of other high-tech devices.
They scan video as it’s being recorded and add layers of other information — often including data collected from any of 75 automated license plate readers across the Bay County and online databases — to help officers on the street who are busy catching fleeing criminals, curbing violence and locating missing vulnerable persons.
Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford is proud to say, “We have one of the first real-time crime centers in Northwest Florida.”
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Bay County’s real-time operations center, called BayROC, joins other ROCs across the nation in taking full advantage of technology that gives them a bird’s-eye view of their communities as life unfolds.
The New York Police Department long ago implemented a system “aimed at discerning patterns in crime data, as it has been widely adopted by major police departments across the country,” according to an article in the MIT Technology Review.
With the real-time crime center, the idea was to take it a step further: What if dispatchers could use the department’s vast amount of data to inform police response to incidents as they happened?
Real-time crime centers allow analysts to combine information collected by street cameras, dash cams and cameras, license plate readers, integrated computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, police drones and thermal imaging infrared cameras used in police helicopters. The information can be overlaid on the mapping system and immediately forwarded to officers.
“That hub can simultaneously handle emergencies as they happen and provide near-instantaneous hindsight, giving police and analysts the ‘eye in the sky’ to identify suspects and critical information before first responders even get to the scene.” scene,” according to a May 30 article on Police1.com, an online “content, policy and training platform for public safety and local government.”
Like most real-time crime centers, BayROC has large video screens that line an entire wall and multi-monitor workstations with maps and video as it captures street cameras throughout Bay County. Analysts can view live video feed from law enforcement drones and helicopters while monitoring social media.
“We monitor all CADs in real-time, providing real-time information to officers in the field,” said Jon Morris, the inspector who oversees BayROC. “We can provide some sort of eye-to-sky information back to the officers.”
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BayROC has only been operational since November, but analysts and the officials they work with have already counted several successes.
Ford said among them was the speedy recovery of a missing woman lost in a rural area between Back Beach Road and West Bay.
“She was dehydrated and wouldn’t have made it out of the woods alive,” he said.
In another case, deputies arrested a 62-year-old man who they believe struck and killed a 4-year-old child in an incident that happened in Breakfast Point in March. Witnesses gave police a description of the truck and, using BayROC technology, business surveillance cameras and license plate readers to track the vehicle, they found their suspect.
Online public websites can answer questions for residents, but they also help analysts. Ford said the analyst can access a Florida law enforcement department website that shows where sex offenders and predators live and even transient predators. That information can be overlaid on a map of where the child went missing.
The agency is a joint operation of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, joined by the Panama City, Panama City Beach, Lynn Haven, Parker and Springfield police departments. Local school system police, who deal with problems in elementary schools, are also involved. (The Sheriff’s Office employs school resource officers in middle and high schools.)
“Our central focus point is to make sure we’re all working together to monitor crime, crime trends and crime in progress,” Ford said.
Ford said it’s important to note that while his office has asked local business owners and residents to let BayROC know if they’re willing to share video surveillance from home and business cameras, the operations center does not have direct access to the footage at any given time.
Sharing only allows deputies to request to view any available video if a crime occurs in a neighborhood, he said.
“I understand people’s concerns about privacy. I think we have adequate safeguards in place,” he said.
As of last week, 150 residents have offered to make their security footage available in case it is ever needed, Ford said.
Anyone who wants to share security camera footage with the agency can do so at baycounty.fususregistry.com.
