Deputies use birds-eye view, solves crimes quicker at Lafayette's Real Time Crime Center

After a Lafayette man tried to kidnap a 4-year-old from a store in Scott, the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office's Real Time Crime Center was able to assist.

The crime center tracked the man's car as it left the store's parking lot using public cameras, and located the man in about an hour. He was arrested and charged with attempted aggravated kidnapping.

The crime center, which is housed in the sheriff's office downtown location, is designed to expand law enforcement's eyes within the parish and can help with everything from stolen property to kidnappings and shootings.

It taps into hundreds of public cameras - traffic cameras, Lafayette Police cameras - and cameras owned by private companies that have offered to partner with the sheriff's office. It can also use body-worn and dash cameras.

"We've incorporated several systems through public and private entities, which allows us to basically have a view of the parish from behind the scenes," said Staff Sgt. Bobby Goodrich, who supervises the center and has been in law enforcement for 21 years.

"We take the place of multiple deputies on the street because we can actually view multiple locations," he added.

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'This is the future'

The center monitors all of the calls within the parish and can assist deputies with real-time information to help as they respond to those calls. It also can help after crimes happen, scanning camera footage for suspects or for stolen property.

"The sheriff (Mark Garber) has always said, 'I want to do everything we can to make everyone feel safe and reduce crime in the parish,'" said Col. Carlos Stutes. "We feel that this is the future."

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When a deputy is responding to a call, the Real Time Crime Center, led by Goodrich and staffed by two other deputies, can give critical information to those in the field. The center can relay information about what a suspect is wearing, which direction they went , whether they're wearing headphones or if they may have a weapon.

"Our response to a critical incident is much more efficient," Goodrich said, "because of that live data that we're able to provide, and kind of give them (deputies) a visual picture of what they're responding to."

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In one case, a caller said a man was walking around her neighborhood with a gun. A deputy was sent to the neighborhood but the man left before he arrived. The Real Time Crime Center was able to tell a different deputy in the area about the man, who actually had an airsoft gun, which are replica guns designed to be low-velocity and non-lethal.

What can the crime center help with?

Since the crime center's launch about six months ago, the center has been able to cover more than $1 million in stolen property, Goodrich said.

Before the launch, a deputy would respond to a theft and would try to narrow a window when the property was stolen. The deputy would knock on doors and work to track down the property that way.

Now, the center can use the camera footage to pinpoint when the property was stolen and how it was removed. If a car was involved, the center can track its movements and possibly get a license plate number.

The goal is to recover the property before it can be stripped for parts or pawned. Since the center launched, it's quadrupled the chances of property being returned, said Capt. Jack Lightfoot, who helped create the center.

"You will see a dramatic impact on the recovery of property as a result of this because of a quicker response to property crimes and a higher chance of recovery," he said.

"This system has been used to solve murders and to apprehend multiple murder suspects, multiple violent crime (suspects) and helped intercede in a couple of instances."

In one case, the crime center was able to locate a student who had made threats to shoot a peer before the student made it to campus with a gun, Goodrich said.

The center also is used by more than just the sheriff's office. All of the agencies in the parish and the Louisiana State Police can use its resources. It's also being tapped to assist the sheriff's office and Lafayette Police Department's joint violent crime task force.

But the benefits of the crime center go beyond its capabilities to help solve crime, Lightfoot said

"We're increasing the faith the public has in us," he said. "You can't really put a price tag on that."

Contact Ashley White at adwhite@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @AshleyyDi.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Lafayette sheriff's Real Time Crime Center helps solve crimes