LYNN HAVEN — Attention criminals: You can run but you can't hide from the camera and the watchful trio of crime analysts at BayROC, the county's Real-time Operations Center.

Tucked inside the sheriff's office on State 77, the three analysts — soon to be joined by a fourth — monitor the county via cameras posted throughout the county and a myriad of other high-tech devices.

They scan video as it is recorded and add layers of other information — which often includes data gathered from any of the 75 automated license plate readers across Bay County and online databases — to assist officers on the street busy nabbing fleeing felons, quelling violence and locating missing endangered persons.

Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford is proud to say, "We have one of the first real-time crime centers in Northwest Florida."

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Bay County's real-time operations center, called BayROC, joins other ROCs across the nation making full use of technology that gives them a bird's-eye view into their communities as life happens. 

The New York Police Department long ago pioneered a system "aimed to discern patterns in crime data, since widely adopted by large police departments around the country," according to an article in the MIT Technology Review.

With the real-time crime center, the idea was to go a step further: What if dispatchers could use the department’s vast trove of data to inform the police response to incidents as they occurred?

Real-time crime centers enable analysts to merge information gleaned from street cameras, body and dash-mounted cameras, license plate readers, integrated computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, police-operated drones and the thermal imaging infrared camera systems used in police helicopters. The information can be overlaid onto a mapping system and immediately relayed to officers.

"That hub can both handle emergencies as they occur and provide a near-instantaneous lookback giving law enforcement and analysts an 'eye from the sky' to identify suspects and critical information before the first arriving responders even make it to the scene," according to an article dated May 30 in Police1.com, an online "content, policy and training platform for public safety and local government."

Like in most real-time crime centers, BayROC features large video screens lining an entire wall and multi-monitor desktop work stations with maps and video as it records from street-based cameras all over Bay County. Analysts can see live video streaming from law enforcement drones and helicopters while monitoring social media.

"We're monitoring all of the CADs in real-time, providing real-time intel to officers in the field," said Jon Morris, inspector overseeing BayROC. "We can provide a kind of eye-in-the-sky intel back to the officers."

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BayROC has only been in operation since November, but analysts and the officers they work with have already counted several successes. 

Ford said among them was the rapid recovery of a missing woman lost in a rural stretch of land between Back Beach Road and West Bay.

"She was dehydrated and would not have made it out of the woods alive," he said.

In another instance, deputies nabbed a 62-year-old man they believe struck and killed a 4-year-old child in a hit and run incident at Breakfast Point in March. Witnesses gave police a description of the truck and, using the BayROC technology, business surveillance cameras and license plate readers to track the vehicle, they found their suspect.

Online public websites may answer questions for residents, but they also assist analysts. Ford said an analyst can access the Florida Department of Law Enforcement website that shows where sex offenders and predators and even transient predators live. That information can be overlaid onto a map where a child has gone missing.

The agency is a joint operation of the Bay County Sheriff's Office, joined by the Panama City, Panama City Beach, Lynn Haven, Parker and Springfield police departments. Local school system police, who address issues in the elementary schools, are also onboard. (The sheriff's office employs school resource officers in the middle and high schools.)

"Our central focal point is to make sure we're all working together to track crime, crime trends and crimes in progress," Ford said.

Ford said that is important to note that, while his office has asked residents to let BayROC know whether they are willing to share surveillance video from home cameras, the operations center does not have direct access to the footage at any given moment.

Local businesses, however, have readily agreed to allow BayROC access at any time to enhance safety for their business.

Deputies want to know which homeowners and business owners are willing to share video footage in the event it is needed. If it is needed for an incident the deputy is investigating, that deputy would ask the home or business owner for permission to use it.

Sharing only lets deputies ask for a look at any available video should a crime occur in the neighborhood, he said.

"I understand people's privacy concerns. I think that we've got the right safeguards in place," he said.

As of last week, 150 residents have offered to make their security footage available in the event it is someday needed, Ford said.

Anyone who wants to share security camera footage with the agency, may share at baycounty.fususregistry.com.