NYPD’s Digital Crime-Fighter

The New York Police Department unveiled a new high-tech command center Thursday that would provide officers crucial data about crimes and suspects -- including convicts’ nicknames and tattoos -- even before police arrived at a crime scene.

The $11-million Real Time Crime Center is the first of its kind and “will transform the way we solve crime,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.

Once a violent crime is reported, officers will feed the address of the incident, descriptions of suspects and other initial information into a digital database incorporating millions of crime records and billions of public records. The tools include a registry of nicknames and tattoos of convicted criminals.

The command center also will use satellite imaging and computerized mapping systems to identify geographic patterns of crimes and to pinpoint possible addresses where suspects might flee -- information that will be relayed to investigators on the street by phone, pager or fax.

The system will “increase the likelihood that we catch the criminals before they strike again,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said.

The 37,000-officer department, the nation’s largest, hopes the innovation will help preserve declines in reports of serious crimes over the last decade.

The new command center is “not a panacea, but it can save precious time,” Bloomberg said. “It sometimes can mean the difference between life and death.”