In Tampa, Florida, the local police department recently provided an exclusive glimpse into the operations of their Real Time Crime Center (RTCC). This facility plays a crucial role, especially during major events such as the annual Gasparilla festivities.

With the Gasparilla Children’s Parade and the main parade drawing near, the Tampa Police Department is collaborating with at least 30 different law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of all attendees. However, the RTCC is just one of the many resources the department is deploying to manage the event smoothly.

As Tampa prepares to welcome an estimated crowd of 300,000 along Bayshore Boulevard for this year’s parades, the police are gearing up to utilize every available resource. Such a massive turnout necessitates enhanced vigilance and strategic coordination.

“For large-scale events like the ones happening this weekend and the following weekend, our role involves aiding surveillance efforts,” explained Sergeant James Valentino, who oversees the RTCC. “We monitor area cameras, ensure public safety, and promptly report any incidents or suspicious activities to officers on the ground.”

“For the large-scale events like we’re going to have this weekend and next weekend, we’ll assist with surveillance, cameras in the area, monitoring them, making sure everybody is safe, reporting any incidents or suspicious behavior to officers in the field,” said Sergeant James Valentino, the sergeant of the Real Time Crime Center.

One a day-to-day basis, the RTCC helps provide information and intelligence to officers in the field in real time.

During the parades, the center will be coordinating efforts between all of law enforcement agencies helping to keep the streets safe.

“One of the purposes of the unit is to act as a JOC, or joint operations center, to ensure communication between all these units is seamless and have representatives for all those agencies in one room to establish communication,” said Sgt. Valentino.

Through CCTV monitoring, different cameras, radios, drones, and live feeds, people in the RTCC are constantly watching different areas.

“If a call comes out, then they’ll switch to that area specifically until the call is cleared,” the Sgt. said.

They will be all hands-on deck for the Children’s Parade and if there is room for improvement, TPD will implement that and make sure they are ready for the big parade.

“Our unit works with our special event unit; they work on different planning as far as like barricades and such. So, we’ll have that effort, we’ll have our unit, we’ll also have drones deployed for the event,” Sgt. Valentino said.

Something else TPD wants everybody to remember is just because you don’t see an officer does not mean you’re not being observed.

For more safety tips for Gasparilla, click here.