Inside Spartanburg’s Real-Time Crime Center: Technology, Transparency, and the Tension Between Safety and Surveillance
- CUBNSC
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
By Javar Juarez
Columbia Urban Broadcast Network (CUBN) | Op-Ed
Spartanburg, S.C. - On Tuesday, January 6, 2026, I visited the City of Spartanburg Police Department for a live demonstration of what officials describe as one of their most significant modern crime-fighting investments: the Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC).
Housed inside Spartanburg PD headquarters, the RTCC is a centralized monitoring and response system built on Axon Fūsus, a cloud-based platform designed to aggregate live and recorded data into a single operational interface. The system allows law enforcement to view public and privately opted-in cameras, overlay license-plate reader data, track officer and vehicle locations, and coordinate responses across agencies in real time.
In theory, the RTCC is meant to help officers save lives, close cases faster, and adapt to an era in which crime itself has become increasingly sophisticated. In practice, it raises equally serious questions about privacy, accountability, and how far surveillance should extend in communities that already feel the weight of over-policing.
Those tensions surfaced during a public town hall convened by South Carolina House Representative Rosalyn Henderson-Myers (District 31), who helped secure $450,000 in state funding to support the RTCC and related public-safety investments.
Real Time Crime Center: A Community Conversation at a Critical Moment
The town hall took place against the backdrop of continued concern about crime in Spartanburg, particularly gun violence and unresolved cases that leave families searching for justice. Residents came not only to see technology, but to ask whether it would meaningfully change what they experience day-to-day.
That context matters.
Just two days earlier, on Sunday, January 4, 2026, Spartanburg Police responded around 5 a.m. to a reported weapons offense at a home on Wofford Street. A passerby had called 911 after witnessing a fight between two men. One man was shot multiple times and later died at Spartanburg Medical Center. The Spartanburg County Coroner identified the victim as 36-year-old Tyson Hall, who was pronounced dead after unsuccessful surgical efforts.
This was not an abstract policy discussion. It was, and remains, a lived reality.
What the Public Was Shown and What It Wasn’t
During the demonstration, Spartanburg PD officials displayed live video feeds from a commercial business identified as a liquor store. The footage allowed viewers to see deep into the interior of the business, well beyond what most people associate with exterior security cameras. Officials also demonstrated integration with South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) traffic cameras, noting that while useful for situational awareness, those cameras are often insufficient for detailed identification or close license-plate capture.
That gap is where Flock Safety automatic license-plate readers (ALPRs) come in. Spartanburg PD confirmed that Flock cameras are deployed throughout the city, capturing license-plate data as vehicles enter and exit Spartanburg. That data is integrated into the RTCC and can be shared with other jurisdictions, including out-of-state agencies, when officers need to confirm a hit.
What the public saw, however, was clearly a limited window into a much larger system. Video can be flagged as evidence, extending its lifespan beyond standard cloud-retention periods and allowing it to be shared with county, state, and federal agencies. No one in the room believed the demonstration represented the full scope of analytical or evidentiary capability available to investigators.
The Surveillance Question
As expected, the most persistent concerns centered on surveillance. Residents asked how data is audited, who has access, which third-party vendors can see it, and what safeguards exist to prevent misuse. Spartanburg PD emphasized internal audits and professional standards, but for some attendees, assurances of self-policing raised as many questions as they answered.
Concerns around Flock cameras were especially pointed. Continuous license-plate monitoring, combined with modern data analytics, creates the potential for pattern-building: identifying where people go, how often, and in what routines. While officials stressed that the RTCC is not predictive-policing software, they acknowledged that artificial intelligence is used to sort and organize large datasets. That distinction matters but so does the reality that systems evolve.
Even among residents generally supportive of law enforcement, the scale of data aggregation prompted understandable unease.
Race, Geography, and Perception
One of the most candid moments of the evening came when officials acknowledged a reality many communities already understand: if high-tech cameras are concentrated in high-crime areas that are also predominantly Black, the perception and experience of over-policing intensifies.
At the same time, Spartanburg PD faces a practical dilemma. Consumer-grade cameras such as Ring and Blink are often unreliable, particularly at night or at a distance. Permanently installed, higher-quality cameras perform far better but carry significant costs.
Currently, most private camera participation comes from commercial businesses, not residential neighborhoods. Liquor stores, gas stations, and retailers frequent targets of crime have opted in at higher rates, shaping both how the system grows and whom it most directly affects.
Spartanburg City vs. Spartanburg County: Why the Numbers Feel Confusing
To understand public frustration, it helps to clarify how crime data works locally.
Spartanburg County includes multiple jurisdictions: the Sheriff’s Office and numerous municipal police departments.
Spartanburg City is one jurisdiction within that larger footprint.
County crime totals include the city but also dozens of other reporting areas. That means crime trends can feel contradictory: statewide or countywide data may show declines, while residents inside the city continue to experience repeated shootings and unresolved cases.
To understand what people are feeling, we must separate:
What’s happening inside city limits
What’s occurring in unincorporated county areas
And which crimes cross those boundaries entirely
South Carolina may be trending down overall, but Spartanburg residents are still living through repeated gun violence and unresolved cases.
Both things can be true at once.
Technology Cannot Replace Police Work or Trust
There is no substitute for real police work. The kind that requires building relationships, earning trust, and being present in the community long before a crime occurs.
Spartanburg PD, like many departments across South Carolina, struggles to keep pace with demand for qualified officers who value the mission and take their oath seriously. The department now competes with neighboring municipalities that offer higher starting pay, better benefits, or simply less dangerous assignments. Staffing shortages affect response times, investigative capacity, and morale realities that no technology can fully offset.
Rep. Henderson-Myers and the Legislative Lens
Representative Henderson-Myers’ involvement is best understood through her broader legislative work. She serves on both the House Judiciary Committee and the House Regulations, Administrative Procedures, Artificial Intelligence & Cybersecurity Committee, placing her at the intersection of public safety, civil rights, and emerging technology.
In her remarks, she framed the RTCC as a tool one that must evolve alongside public input. She emphasized officer safety, community engagement, and the need to confront crime as it exists today, not as we wish it to be.
That framing deserves to be taken seriously, even as it warrants continued scrutiny.
A Tool, Not a Cure-All
The Real-Time Crime Center is neither a silver bullet nor a dystopian inevitability. It is a powerful tool in a moment when cities are growing, changing, and struggling to balance safety with civil liberties.
Technology cannot substitute for trust. It cannot resolve economic disinvestment, mental-health crises, housing instability, or the sense that development produces winners and losers while leaving many behind.
Spartanburg PD has taken a significant step toward modernizing its capabilities. Representative Henderson-Myers has taken a visible step toward public engagement. What remains unresolved is the long-term question of accountability not just how the system works today, but how transparently it will be governed tomorrow.
My advice is simple: open and honest, to the brink. Transparency is not a risk—it is the only path forward. And above all, broker peace first.
The community is watching.
And they should be.