Big Brother just booted up in the Valley of the Sun, and he’s got his digital eye on every street corner. The Phoenix Police Department has rolled out the Real Time Operation Center (RTOC) in the Cactus Park Precinct, a state-of-the-art surveillance hub that's all systems go since January. Echoing the voices of local lawmakers and cops, the center promises to cut down the crime rate and spruce up the community's quality of life, thanks to its high-tech tool kit stuffed with cameras, license plate readers, and gunshot detectors.

According to the City of Phoenix’s announcement, they mean business on the 27th Avenue corridor, playing host to the RTOC's debut. "After over two years of hard work and coordination from the Police Department, my office, and the Community, I'm proud to say the Real Time Operation Center has officially opened and already providing positive results," said 

Councilwoman Betty Guardado. And when she says results, she’s not just flapping gums—hundreds of shell casings have been scooped up and perps are getting snagged left and right.

Here’s the skinny on how the tech operates: the gunshot detection gear can pinpoint the source of a shot down to a hair's breadth – we're talking five millimeters margin of error. “This is designed to immediately support patrol officers responding to calls," Lieutenant Scott Cain said in the precinct’s resource lieutenant hoops.

Dig this, the RTOC isn’t just a fancy room with a few blinking lights. We're talking about a team of officers and police assistants, planted in front of a bank of screens, relaying the hot tips to the boys and girls on the ground. It’s like a real-life crime movie, minus the popcorn. The patrol officers get the directional low-down on where the trouble's brewing, and oftentimes it's not where the initial call came from, leading the brass in blue blocks away to where the bad guys are actually cooling their heels, as said by Cain.

And the gears keep turning—another RTOC is in the works for the Desert Horizon Precinct on Hatcher Road over in west Sunnyslope, with city council giving it the green light. They're eyeballing a launch date sometime next year, if all the ducks line up in a row. "The opening of the Real Time Operations Center has been in the works for years and is just one piece of the puzzle in improving safety along the 27th Avenue Corridor," Councilwoman Laura Pastor piped in, spotlighting the effort as a true tag-team play with multiple departments pitching in to swipe at crime and grime in the streets.