With the click of a mouse, the staff at the Springfield Police Real-Time Analysis Center can make traffic congestion at The X instantly disappear.
Not literally, but just about.
Software at the center, inside the police station, allows analysts to quickly review footage from traffic cameras at The X or any of several dozen locations around the city. Analysts can condense two hours of footage into a couple of minutes. And if, for example, police are looking for a red car, the footage can be filtered to remove cars of every other color.
If they are looking for pedestrians or someone on a bike, they can remove the cars all together — or all cars except those making a right turn.
And all of this can be done in seconds, using software known as Briefcam.
“There’s a lot more it can do. It’s a phenomenal tool,” said William Schwarz, director of the Springfield Police Crime Analysis Unit, which oversees the Real-Time Analysis Center, or R-TAC. “It allows us to operate pretty quickly up here.”
The first reaction visitors have upon seeing the tools available is usually to exclaim “holy cow!” — or words to that effect.
“Even I’m still ‘holy cow!’ and I’ve been around policing for 30-something years,” Schwarz said.
To view the original article, CLICK HERE.