HARTFORD--The capital city is taking a new approach to solving crime.
On Wednesday, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin and Chief of Police James Rovella joined together with local politicians to unveil a new real-time crime and data intelligence center. The center is a centralized hub intended to share information to improve city policing and prevent criminal activity in the Greater Hartford region.
"One of the keys to making our community safer is to take advantage of new technology that helps law enforcement make smart, targeted arrests that get violent individuals off the street," said Bronin.
The center will not only be a database for information on crimes committed in Hartford, but also those from surrounding towns. It will compile police notes from the field, witness statements, victim information and all complaints.
"We can now start to attach different defendants, different cases , different items we've covered and circumstances for the big investigative unit here," said Rovella.
There will also be state and federal data available in the system to more easily connect crimes and find out if arrests are wanted for other incidents. Some partnering agencies include the Connecticut Intelligence Center, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (the ATF), the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, the New England division of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
And not just city officers will work in the center. There will also be crime analysts, military-trained criminal experts and other top people in the criminal field.
"By opening of the crime center, we have consolidated the department's intelligence resources to help identify patterns and stop emerging crime," Chief Rovella said. "At the same time, we are reducing the digital divide created by incompatible information systems between agencies, corporations, and stakeholders."
Other benefits will include a more comprehensive set of trend and crime stat data for specific areas.
The center will have tons of screens with various streams of information, such as city cameras, shotspotter and images of wanted criminals. It can send images of that information--such as photos of a criminal or livestreams of cameras--to officers on the street.
"When we actually want to send video, photographs, anything we can have in this crime center down to the officer a in real time situation," said Rovella.
Even apps such as the GPS application Waze are utilized by the center.
"Today is a new era for Hartford to have such an advanced crime system in place," said Councilman James Sanchez, who is also the co-chair of the Quality of Life and Public Safety committees. "With today's advanced technology we are now able to keep up with the ever-growing issues of cyberspace, credit fraud and other high tech crimes. Let Hartford become the beacon for all our neighboring towns towards helping to improve the quality of life."
The center was paid for with state and federal grants, as well as Capital Improvement Project money from the city, which can't be used for any other means, such as hiring more officers.
"This data in the intelligence center is about giving our officers the tools that they need to be safer and to be more effective," said Bronin.