ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Albuquerque Police Department gave KOB 4 an in-depth look at its state-of-the-art Real Time Crime Center Friday.

“There are 10,000 cameras now that we can see in real time,” Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said. “When we came in, there were only like 100 or something.”

Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina credits the Real Time Crime Center for tracking down Sergio Almanza.

In 2021, Almanza ran a red light at Central and Tingley, killing 7-year-old Pronoy Bhattacharya.

“That was the most successful issue that we were able to resolve – with a complete camera system tracking a car from the beginning of an incident, past the incident, and beyond,” Medina said.

Medina says with real time traffic camera feeds APD tracked the ATV Almanza was driving, and using other technology like cell phone data, later identified him as the suspect.

The RTCC also tracks the city’s ShotSpotter data. APD says about 15% of the city has ShotSpotter right now. That technology helped connect and track down the suspects accused of shooting at elected officials’ houses earlier this year.

“In the end, it was a lot of different work,” Medina said. “Whether it was cell phones, ShotSpotter technology indicating when shots had been fired at a location, overlapping them with where a cell phone location, it all led to us finding everybody involved in this case, and eventually federal charges being brought against these individuals.”

Medina says after shootings, identifying shell casings is crucial to solving crimes and connecting incidents. That’s how it became clear to APD that the same gun was used in the murder of three Muslim men last year.

The mayor says showing progress has been made at the Real Time Crime Center is part of the city’s preparations ahead of the next legislative session.

“Our legislative asks have two priorities,” Keller said. “Number one is fighting crime. And number two is housing and homelessness.”