San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and other city officials Wednesday celebrated the completion of The City’s new downtown “real-time investigations center,” a hub of surveillance technologies and practitioners that police say has assisted in at least 800 arrests since early 2024.
“We are here today to highlight one of the most important advancements in how our city fights crime and keeps people safe, a major upgrade to the real time investigations center,” Lurie told reporters, calling the use of technology “a game-changer” in helping the police and fire officials respond quickly to incidents.
Even as the event progressed, an enforcement drama quietly unfolded across the room as a screen showed city police taking a person into custody in connection with an East Bay homicide case after getting a positive hit on a license-plate reader and launching several drones, according to Lily Ho, a spokesperson for Flock Safety, which provides license-plate recognition and drone technologies to The City. A police spokesman declined to provide details…