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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR- 039-06
February 6, 2006

MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND POLICE COMMISSIONER KELLY ANNOUNCE EXPANSION OF NYPD REAL TIME CRIME CENTER

Expansion of Real Time Crime Center As Announced in the Mayor’s State of the City Address Will Allow Detectives Working on Non-Homicide Cases Ability to Access Data Warehouse to Identify Crime Patterns and Suspects

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly today announced the expansion of the New York City Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center. The expansion of the Center’s capabilities follows the Mayor’s announcement in his State of the City Address in which he pledged to enhance the Center’s resources to include serious crimes other than murders and shootings.  The Real Time Crime Center, which first opened in July 2005, conducts rapid analysis of homicides and shootings citywide in order to provide a real-time assessment of emerging crime, crime patterns and potential criminal suspects citywide.

“The Real Time Crime Center has proven to be an invaluable crime-fighting tool,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “The expansion of the Center to include additional serious crimes ensures that our detectives have the most sophisticated resources at their disposal to stop crimes before they become trends and catch criminals before they strike again. In conjunction with other police initiatives including Operation Impact, the Center has been a critical tool for the NYPD in ensuring that New York remains the nation’s safest big city.” 

"We want to use every advantage technology has to offer in suppressing crime,” said Police Commissioner Kelly. “With the Real Time Crime Center, our detectives have a new partner in crime fighting.”

The expansion of the Real Time Crime Center also includes three other major steps: the addition of all NYPD arrest records dating back to 1995, new search capacities that combine multiple keyword and narrative text requests, and new visualization technology for graphical reporting of criminal incidents including linking of descriptive details associated with the suspect and incident location. In addition, 175 new wireless laptops will allow detectives remote access to this warehouse of invaluable data as they investigate crimes throughout the five boroughs. 

The Real Time Crime Center provides immediate investigative support and analysis to 115 Detective Squads and eight Investigative Response Vans working on homicide, shooting and other serious cases. Through the end of January, the Real Time Center fielded more than 1,600 requests for information. Nearly half of all requests involved shooting incidents.

The Center supported detectives in the investigation of a wide array of homicides, which helped detectives solve 74% of all homicides in 2005. As a result of this success, the data warehoused in the Center will be available to all detectives investigating major and violent crimes including rapes, robberies, stabbings, kidnappings and missing persons.

The Real Time Crime Center has produced measurable results in solving homicides. In one of those cases, two members of a violent street gang shot a 19-year-old to death on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.  Within an hour, detectives and analysts in the Real Time Crime Center sifted through thousands of police and public records and identified the address of one of the suspects – a parolee with a history of violent crimes. Police quickly descended on the apartment and arrested the suspect.  His accomplice was found and apprehended five days later.

The Real Time Crime Center was designed to quickly provide detectives in the field with information regarding emerging crime patterns, potential suspects as well as an up-to-date picture of police resources and their availability throughout the City. Before the creation of the Real Time Crime Center it would take hours or days to access the wealth of information now available to detectives within minutes. Detectives would leave the field, return to the precinct and manually sift through records hoping to identify critical information to their cases. The integration of data in the Real Time Crime Center allows all of this critical information to be merged into an easy-to-access report.

The Center also uses satellite imaging and sophisticated mapping of the City precinct-by-precinct. Its Link Analysis Capacity can track suspects to all of their known addresses and point detectives to the locations where they are most likely to flee. The Center will house a massive data warehouse of billions of records including:

  • More than 120 million New York City criminal and arrests complaints and    911 call records dating back to 1995
  • More than 5 million New York State criminal records, parole and probation files
  • More than 31 million national crime records
  • More than 35 billion public records 

The $11 Million Real Time Crime Center is staffed by a complement of 43 detectives and civilian analysts 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.







MEDIA CONTACT:


Stu Loeser/Virginia Lam   (212) 788-2958



GENERAL CONTACT:

Paul Browne   (NYPD)
(646) 610-6700


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