Behind the Screens of New Orleans' Real-Time Crime Center
New Orleans is a hub for festivities. Millions of people filter into the city every year to partake in cultural parades, massive sporting events, and world-famous Mardi Gras celebrations.
While the city thrives on its cultural vibrance, securing these events—as well as the city’s some-400,000 residents—is a tall order. Behind the scenes, the city’s Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) monitors a sprawling network of surveillance cameras, sensors, license plate readers, and more to keep a watchful eye on the streets without disrupting activities.
At GSX 2025, SecurityInfoWatch was offered an insider look at New Orleans’ uniquely independent RTCC.
The flagship launch
The New York Police Department (NYPD) rolled out the first iteration of the RTCC in 2005. That number has since exploded to over 300 nationwide as staff shortages drive down police efficiency and cities embrace proactive defense to combat evolving crime trends.
RTCCs combine multiple disparate data streams, like live camera feeds or audio sensors, into a central hub. This intelligence can be utilized to aid officers or emergency responders in the field, support investigations, or provide status updates on natural disasters or extreme weather events as they occur.
New Orleans’ RTCC opened its doors in November 2017, though its around-the-clock monitoring services had only fully jumped off in February 2018. Helmed by Director of Public Safety Support Ross Bourgeois, the RTCC is staffed by a dedicated team monitoring nearly 3,000 cameras citywide, integrating real-time surveillance with computer-aided dispatch (CAD) from the 911 system.
Managing city-wide security tech
The facility marries thousands of Axis cameras with Genetec’s Security Center VMS and the Motorola Command Central platform to give its staff a broad but easy-to-use overview of the city. It also features over 200 pole-mounted license plate readers to track vehicles for investigative and criminal purposes as well as more innocuous uses, like traffic management.
While our tour group focused on the wall-to-wall kaleidoscope of video screens dominating the room, Bourgeois emphasized that the real work happens at the staff workstations. “The video wall is mostly for show,” he says. “Our staff could operate without it. It’s there for a quick overview, but the action happens at the desks.”
When an incident occurs, cameras within a certain geographic radius are automatically flagged. Bourgeois’ team can then view live CAD notes, communicate with responders in the field, and quickly access relevant footage.
During major events like the Sugar Bowl and Mardi Gras, operations are scaled up to work with government agencies like the Joint Terrorism Task Force or Homeland Security Investigations alongside local police intelligence. For the Super Bowl, NOLA’s RTCC team set up dedicated, watermarked monitoring workstations at the stadium, NFL command centers, and other secure locations to provide ground-level intelligence and coordination.
“Our priority is preventing re-victimization, protecting victims’ families, and safeguarding jury pools by ensuring sensitive video is not misused,” Bourgeois said.
Keeping privacy in-house
According to Bourgeois, the NOLA RTCC has some of the most restrictive access policies in the country. All remote access is strictly limited to the facility, and all unarchived video footage is deleted after 30 days. On the physical side, employees use USB drives as a two-factor authentication method. Internally, staff members must have their desktop screens recorded, and media transfers are severely restricted, with alert systems that flag attempts to move or alter files. The use of USB drives, save those used in the authentication process, is forbidden.
Any exceptions made—for example, transferring large volumes of video of a high-profile event to agencies like the FBI—are thoroughly documented and must be approved by the city attorney.
“We need to make sure the urge to do the job quickly doesn’t usurp the policies we have in place,” said Bourgeois. “We can conduct our mission and stay secure at the same time.”
On the cyber end, the facility operates entirely on its own network, firewalled away from the city’s systems. Following a ransomware attack in 2019 that crippled the entire city through the new year, Bourgeois’ team was able to, after a few cautionary checks, get their networks back up and running within six hours.
Staying on mission
While the NOLA RTCC notably remains in-house for most of its functions—Bourgeois said that “we are our own integrators” when it comes to installing new software or hardware—it still remains part of the city’s public safety structure. As such, it reports to the same leadership as law enforcement, fire, and EMS, though all team members are considered civilian, or “non-sworn,” personnel.
As a public safety entity, Bourgeois states that his team’s goal is to make law enforcement and other safety officials “more efficient and effective.” In his estimation, the job of the RTCC is to be another gadget in an officer’s tool belt.
“I measure success by hours saved—over 50,000 since opening,” he concluded. “But, more importantly, it’s about impact: saving an hour for a homicide detective, 20 minutes in finding a lost child, or 90 seconds in getting an ambulance to a cardiac arrest. We’re here when seconds count and moments matter.”
