West Valley City police describe new real-time crime center that supports officers live on calls

Deputy Chief Fazzio opened a monthly West Valley City Police Department community briefing to introduce a newly established real-time crime center, which the department says gives intelligence analysts live access to patrol calls and camera feeds to speed investigations and assist officers on scene.

The city started operating the center in January 2025, and staff work seven days a week covering the department's busiest periods though the center is not yet staffed 24 hours a day, Deputy Chief Fazzio said.

Why it matters: The department said analysts can now surface leads in seconds or minutes while an incident is unfolding, allowing officers to stay on scene and complete evidence collection and interviews rather than pausing to run searches. That, officials said, both speeds case progress and can improve officer safety.

Sergeant Fox, who described how the unit differs from the department's prior intelligence work, said the key change is timing: "Our intelligence units used to support investigations on the back end. Now we're applying those tools up front with our patrol team," he said. "We're offering the analyst tools and a talented analyst to our patrol officers up front to generate a better result."

Ben Tippetts, an intelligence analyst with the unit, demonstrated live monitoring in the briefing, explaining that analysts frequently watch an officer's body camera and related feeds. "We're watching in real time, practically through their eyes," Tippetts said. He said analysts can send a message to officers, ask them to follow up on a detail, or use traffic and business cameras and other databases to develop suspect information while officers remain engaged with victims or witnesses.

Officials said the desk has produced roughly 200 leads annually that directly benefit investigations and has been involved in an increased number of cases that led to successful prosecutions, though presenters did not provide a detailed breakdown of outcomes or prosecution rates.

Presenters also described an officer-safety use case: when an analyst watching a live body camera recognized an officer in a physical altercation, the analyst relayed that information to nearby units to speed backup. "If an officer gets into a sticky situation, we can see that as it's happening and relay that over the radio," Sergeant Fox said.

Privacy questions were raised by viewers. The department said analysts use cameras placed in public spaces (parks, city facilities) and access private business cameras only when businesses have opted into partnerships to help solve crimes. "The cameras we utilize are either placed in public areas or because we have a partnership with someone that wants to participate," Sergeant Fox said.

Tippetts said officers receive a vibration alert on their body camera when an analyst begins watching, and that the alert sometimes prompts officers to request specific searches or additional help. Analysts communicate with officers via radio, in-car laptops, messages to body cameras, text and phone calls depending on the situation, presenters said.

On training and development, presenters said analysts had to adapt from calm, back-end investigative work to operating under tight time pressure and learning radio and field communication protocols. The RTCC was iteratively developed: the department piloted analyst involvement on calls, kept methods that worked and dropped those that did not.

Deputy Chief Fazzio closed the session by noting the department's enthusiasm for the program and thanking viewers. The briefing ended with an announcement that the next community meeting will be May 27 and will focus on protecting families from scams.

What remains unclear: presenters did not provide a full staffing chart, exact hours the RTCC covers, or a breakdown of the 200 "leads" by case type or prosecutorial outcome; they also did not provide written policies governing use of private camera feeds in the public broadcast.

The department encouraged residents to submit questions via comments and said staff would answer as they could.