Warner Robins Police Department unveils new real-time crime center 

WARNER ROBINS— The Warner Robins Police Department has unveiled its new crime center, which aims to assist in stopping crimes in real-time. Warner Robins Police Chief Wayne Fisher said this crime center was a project dating back to the previous administration when they started to implement the FLOCK camera system. 

“The city partnered with Georgia Tech with a program that utilized technologies that consisted in the FLOCK camera system to better coordinate our responses and assess what crime was taking place at a given place and time within the city,” he said. 

Fisher said the department has experienced numerous benefits from these FLOCK cameras, including a reduction in traffic accidents at major intersections such as Moody Road and Russell Parkway. 

According to Fisher, the real-time crime center did not cost the taxpayer a dime. 

“It did not come out of SPLOST, ARPA or the General Fund. This was utilized as seized assets from investigations the city had been involved with,” 

Captain Eric Gossman described the crime center as a centralized hub where law enforcement can monitor, analyze, and respond to crimes in real time. 

A few key aspects of the crime center Gossman pointed out include live surveillance feeds, license plate recognition, social media monitoring and crime databases. 

According to Gossman, faster response times, improved crime prevention, data-driven policing, and improved community health and safety are a few benefits this real-time crime center can provide to the City of Warner Robins. 

“Things that are evolving in real time, maybe a robbery or, God forbid, a shooting, we can have people that are able to look at those camera feeds and search historical data of what might be leads to put our people where we need to be to stop the incident or to resolve it in a more accurate manner,” Gossman said. “For community health and safety, it helps us look at where we’re placing these tools to solve and prevent crimes and maybe free up officers so that they can handle things in a faster manner.” 

Real-time crime centers have been quite successful. According to Gossman, a real-time crime center in Atlanta helped solve 85% of violent crimes using surveillance footage. In New Orleans, Louisiana, emergency response times were reduced by 40%, and in New York City, missing persons were located within hours instead of days using a real-time crime center. 

Gossman also addressed privacy concerns the public may have about the crime center. 

“We partner with the community in how we are using these tools to keep your and our community’s rights being safe and secure. We do that in a manner where we use policies and procedures and we enforce those policies and procedures,” he said. “We also want to keep it transparent by letting the community know what we’re doing and how we’re doing our job to be more effective.” 

Overall, the Warner Robins real-time crime center aims to enhance law enforcement efficiency, help reduce crime, improve public safety, and build trust with communities through data transparency. 

“This is something that will benefit the entire community, not just the City of Warner Robins. Safety is what we rely on and smart policing is a part of it,” Mayor LaRhonda Patrick said. “Technology is here, so we might as well embrace it, and this is how we’re embracing it in a way that can benefit every single person and their families.”