What This Story Is About
KPD used its new Real Time Information Center to track and arrest suspects, including in a burglary reported on UT’s campus, using live public cameras.
Why It Matters
KPD said the center helps solve crime faster — like recovering a stolen bicycle and removing a repeat property offender — as license plate cameras draw national scrutiny.
What Happens Next
KPD plans to launch a drone first responder program from the center and add its own downtown security cameras.
For Context
Officials stress the center’s cameras are not license plate readers, and say they are committed to using the technology transparently, ethically and responsibly.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – The Knoxville Police Department has used its new Real Time Information Center this week to find suspects, including a man in a burglary reported on UT’s campus.
KPD’s RTIC team used public cameras to find the man and bring him into custody. The department said the center is an important tool to help solve crimes.
KPD is discussing the center as license plate reading cameras draw controversy nationwide. Officials said the department has some license plate readers, but the cameras in the RTIC are not license plate readers.
The department said it wants to keep its use of public cameras open to the public as people scrutinize them.
“We’re so committed to using this technology transparently, to using it ethically, to using it responsibly,” said Scott Erland, communications manager for KPD.
KPD uses cameras set up across the city so people working in the center can see what is happening right away.
Erland said the center will continue to grow.
“We’ll be able to deploy drones from the Real Time Information Center to 911 calls for service to again provide as much information as we can to officers who are responding to calls for service,” Erland said.
The department will launch a drone first responder program. It also plans to add its own security cameras downtown in the future.
“It’s a priority for us to ensure were keeping the downtown area safe and this is just another tool that we can use to ensure were keeping the downtown area safe and that we respond appropriately,” Erland said.
Tyler Auer, a Knoxville neighbor, said he supports downtown cameras.
“I think it’ll be a good thing. It’ll be far less crime down here,” Auer said.
Erland did not have a time frame for when the drone first responder program will start. The downtown security cameras have not been installed, and it is unknown when they will be. The only security cameras downtown are from businesses. KPD does not have access to those cameras and relies on officers downtown to relay information.
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