FEBRUARY 20268GOVERNMENT CIO OUTLOOKIN MYOPINIONChad Kasmar is the Chief of Police at the Tucson Police Department, overseeing law enforcement operations and community safety initiatives in Tucson, Arizona. His leadership focuses on enhancing public trust, implementing innovative policing strategies and fostering collaborative partnerships to ensure a safer community.Through this article, Chad Kasmar shares his insights on the Tucson Police Department's shift from TRACC to CSARC, enhancing public safety with advanced technology. CSARC integrates real-time data and video analytics across multiple agencies, improving emergency response coordination. It involves collaboration among city departments, vendors, and community groups to address issues like street racing and retail theft, aiming to streamline operations and bolster community safety.n recent years, the Tucson Police Department (TPD) has prioritized investing in technology, as well as staff who have advanced data analysis and other skills to make use of these important tools.It's really not a choice. With fewer people interested in and committing to long-term careers as police officers, agencies must work more efficiently, embracing technology and making better and more extensive use of non-sworn professional staff. This is how we can best support officers in the field­especially by providing them with information that helps keep them safe.In 2023, TPD began the process of transitioning from TRACC to CSARC­Tucson real-time analytical crime center to community safety, awareness and response center­a move that will greatly expand the intelligence available to officers, firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers, 9-1-1 call takers and alternative responders such as mental health clinicians.TRACC, which is staffed by TPD sergeants, moved to share physical space with Tucson's Public Safety Communications Department (PSCD), the 9-1-1 center, several years ago­in part so that TPD personnel could relieve PSCD dispatchers when they went on break. CSARC will allow this system to again be able to be directed out of TPD headquarters.CSARC will provide three additional benefits: central access to visual information (often from a higher vantage point than eye level), quicker intelligence access during critical events and better collaboration among Tucson's multiple first responder agencies.While TRACC had limited video access­at first, only cameras from the local electric utility and live news feeds of major events­CSARC will have a far greater ability to provide "eyes on" intelligence from cameras throughout the community. Private entities can opt-in to allow TPD to access their cameras­not to direct or control them, but to view TUCSON POLICE DEPARTMENT INVESTS IN REAL-TIME DATA HUB FOR OFFICER SAFETYChad Kasmar, Chief of Police, Tucson Police DepartmentByChad KasmarI
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