Was that a gunshot?! New law enforcement tech may detect and report crime in real time.

New technology may alert deputies to gunshots even if there are no witnesses around to report them and allow them to pull up security footage with a few keystrokes.

Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said he plans to expand the Real Time Crime Center and integrate a gunshot detection system known as ShotSpotter into the RTCC to increase intelligence, efficiency and safety in law enforcement response and public safety.

"The Real Time Crime Center is really going to incorporate elements our dispatch with elements of our intelligence and then create this network throughout Escambia County that they can use this real-time intelligence to dispatch deputies, to gather more intelligence on ongoing investigations," Simmons told the News Journal. "We want to make sure that what we have is a state-of-the-art program that will serve the citizens of Escambia County, and I think they deserve that."

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What is the ECSO's Real Time Crime Center?

The Office of Justice Programs, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, says the mission of a RTCC is to capitalize on ever growing technologies to and centralize the mass amount of information and intelligence gathered in short windows of time.

"Such efforts may allow law enforcement officers to respond quickly, or even immediately, to crimes in progress or to those that recently occurred," the OJP says. "The technologies available allow law enforcement agencies and officers to respond to crime events more efficiently, more deliberately, with improved operational intelligence, and with a proactive emphasis on officer, citizen and community safety."

The expansion of the ECSO's RTCC begins with the implementation of new software known as Fusus, that "extracts and unifies live video, data and sensor feeds from virtually any source, enhancing the situational awareness and investigative capabilities of law enforcement agencies."

Simmons says the Sheriff's Office will use Fusus as the foundation to build out its network. The Fusus cores the ECSO purchased will be used to integrate any camera system where the core is placed, giving the new and improved RTCC access to live video feeds. This includes local partners like Escambia County Public Schools and other entities that allow ECSO to tap into their feeds.

"That network is going to be expanded through the use of individual cores," Simmons said. "We'll provide these cores with other camera systems and that will work integrated into our system as we get up and running."

Along with the ECSO's intelligence analysts, the Pensacola Police Department is partnering in the project and will have their intelligence analysts alongside their ECSO counterparts in the new RTCC.

"We're utilizing the technology tools to be more effective and pinpoint policing in addressing community issues and concerns, especially as it related to violent crime and other things," Pensacola Police Chief Eric Randall said. "It is a force multiplier is what it is, because working with the sheriff's department and us collaborating on different projects is pooling our resources together for the good of all Escambia County."

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What is ShotSpotter and how does it integrate into the Real Time Crime Center?

ShotSpotter is a state-of-the-art system that allows law enforcement agencies to detect gunfire in whichever area the system has been activated, even if citizens don't report the gunfire.

According to ShotSpotter's FAQ sheet, the system "uses an array of acoustic sensors that are connected wirelessly to ShotSpotter's centralized, cloud-based application to reliably detect and accurately triangulate gunshots."

Randall said one of his last investigations in Virginia before he became Pensacola's police chief was a person who was shot and killed in the streets in an isolated industrial area, but no one reported any shots fired. However, Randall said ShotSpotter activated.

Simmons plans to use this technology in both the county and city limits by integrating it into the Fusus-run RTCC. Both the sheriff and Randall will determine hotspots of frequent criminal or firearm activity in their respective jurisdictions and setup a 3-square mile area for ShotSpotter to send real-time data to the RTCC.

During the recent legislative cycle, the Florida legislature approved appropriations to the tune of $850,000 for the ECSO to purchases ShotSpotter and incorporate it into the county. The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Gulf Breeze, and Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola.

The funding request says that ShotSpotter "will mitigate gun violence by providing deputies and participating agencies real-time gunfire intelligence data," allowing agencies to "dispatch law enforcement to precise gunfire locations, increase law enforcement response times and increase law enforcement and public safety."

ShotSpotter is a subscription service, providing the gunfire detection system to Escambia for a two-year period. The money will be given to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for subsequent disbursement to the ECSO.

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Which ECSO community partners will receive the first Fusus cores?

Simmons says there are three entities who will first receive the cores to provide law enforcement access to their cameras — the city of Pensacola, Escambia's Transportation and Traffic Operations and the Escambia County School District.

"Those three entities are our first three priorities," Simmons said. "Those are pretty big."

However, in the future Simmons says the cores can be expanded to private businesses and private citizens' homes.

"Businesses can purchase the core themselves, and then voluntarily add their system to our Real Time Crime Center," Simmons said. "If you have a business on say (U.S. Highway) 29, and we have businesses with cameras (on Highway 29), you can imagine the network that we would have access to if something were to happen."

If adding your home security system to the RTCC sounds like a privacy issue, Simmons says not to worry. The integration of private business and private homeowners works slightly different than the continuous live feed and recordings from public entities.

If a homeowner elects to add their camera system to the RTCC, their footage is still private and either the ECSO or PPD would request a specific amount of footage over a specific period of time if authorities believe criminal activity occurred. The homeowner would then receive a message from law enforcement requesting the footage from a period of time and the homeowner can either deny or accept the request.

This would further streamline law enforcement's ability to access camera footage when dealing with crimes, meaning instead of deputies spending time traveling to a specific location to request camera footage, they could have near-immediate access through the RTCC.

"One of the goals is reduce crime and, two, increase the quality of life of our residents so people can truly continue to live, work, play, raise a family and have a good time in the whole Pensacola region," Randall said. "But also, from an officer standpoint, smarter policing, intelligence-led policing (and) being a lot more proactive than reactive and things of that nature."

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia Pensacola police technology uses cameras, audio to spot crime