KEY IDEAS:
- Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) personnel need fast access to live and historical data to support RTIC operations, investigations, and resource decisions.
- Without unified data, suspect identification, case connections, and trend analysis can take longer as personnel search across disconnected systems.
- Peregrine integrates live inputs, LPR, CAD, RMS, and other data sources into a common operating picture.
- Unified data helped FCPD identify a child abduction suspect in 13 minutes, connect exposure cases, and identify crime hotspots.
💡 FAIRFAX COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT AT A GLANCE:
Location: Fairfax County, Virgina
Established: 1940
Population: Approx. 1.2 million
Sworn count: Approx. 1,450
Total personnel: Approx. 1,760
Sources: Fairfax County, U.S. Census
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. — The Fairfax County Police Department launched its RTIC in April 2024 — the first of its kind in Northern Virginia. Within a year, the crime center had supported more than 6,500 cases across the National Capital Region, using the following to prevent and address crime:
- Live inputs from a variety of data sources
- A 24/7 team of dedicated RTIC personnel
- Tips from the community nonprofit Crime Solvers
RTICs depend on speed. When live inputs, historical records, and investigative data live in separate systems, personnel can lose critical time switching between tools and piecing together context during active incidents.
That’s why FCPD uses Peregrine as the informational backbone of its RTIC. Peregrine integrates and normalizes data from:
- License plate recognition (LPR) devices
- Community-based camera feeds
- Other live inputs around the jurisdiction
- Historical data from FCPD’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) and records management systems (RMS)
The result: a unified, comprehensive operating picture that updates in real time to support RTIC operators and field officers alike.
With that shared operating picture, FCPD personnel can identify and locate suspects, connect related cases, and analyze crime trends more quickly. Recently, the agency used Peregrine to identify the suspect in a child abduction case and close a series of unresolved exposure cases.
💡 HOW UNIFIED DATA HELPS FCPD SOLVE CASES AND DIRECT RESOURCES:
- Enabled investigators to identify a child abduction suspect in 13 minutes and apprehend the individual within hours
- Helped detectives connect more than a dozen exposure incidents, identify a suspect, and close several open and pending cases
- Revealed crime hotspots and larceny spikes, helping the agency direct resources toward higher-risk areas
The examples below show how unified data helps FCPD personnel act faster during active investigations, connect related cases, and make more informed resource decisions.
How FCPD identified a child abduction suspect in 13 minutes
“From the moment we got the photo to the moment we said, ‘this is our guy,’ it was 13 minutes. Within Peregrine, from when our investigator typed the information into Peregrine to when she identified the suspect, it was 60 seconds. Doesn’t get quicker than that.”
Maj. Hudson Bull
Fairfax County Police Department
On July 18, 2025, a toddler wandered out of the children’s play area in a Fairfax mall. Before the child’s parents could catch up to her, a man picked her up and walked into a nearby store.
The toddler’s mother then found and confronted the man. She took back her child, snapped a photo of the abductor’s face as he fled, and called 911.
Back at FCPD, RTIC operators were monitoring incoming 911 calls and saw the mother’s call come in. They knew FCPD’s field units were tied up in another incident and would need several minutes to get to the mall — but time was of the essence, so RTIC personnel contacted the child’s parents directly and asked them to send their photo of the suspect.
🔎 WHAT DOES A REAL-TIME INFORMATION CENTER DO?
A real-time information center helps law enforcement agencies collect, analyze, and act on live and historical data during active incidents and investigations. RTIC personnel may monitor 911 calls, camera feeds, LPR data, CAD data, RMS data, and community tips to support field officers and investigators.
Searching across systems with physical descriptors
”In that child abduction case, without Peregrine, I don’t know what we would have done. That was just amazing. The product works, and thank God we had it implemented at that time to be able to solve that.” —Maj. Hudson Bull, Fairfax County Police Department
Using descriptors from that photo, FCPD’s investigators had a lead in a matter of minutes:
- RTIC Investigator Nicole Bustillos opened Peregrine and typed the suspect’s physical descriptors — hair color, build, ethnicity — into the search bar.
- She narrowed the results to those who have lived or been arrested in the area around the mall.
- Peregrine returned a list of possible suspects and their booking photos.
- The third person on the list appeared to match the photo.
”It was off to the races at that point,” said Maj. Hudson Bull, who oversees FCPD’s RTIC. “We had the information that we needed. We knew who we were looking for.”
Using a unified dossier to connect known associates
Bustillos clicked into the man’s dossier in Peregrine — an integrated profile containing information pulled from disparate sources — and reviewed his history, which verified that he was likely to be the suspect based on previous incidents. The dossier also listed the man’s known associates, including family members, with their contact information. RTIC personnel called the suspect’s family members and confirmed his identity.
🧠 HOW PEREGRINE BUILDS A UNIFIED DOSSIER:
Peregrine uses Match, its proprietary entity resolution algorithm, to merge related records from different systems into one profile, helping investigators quickly review relevant history, associations, locations, and contact information.
How unified data helped solve the case in minutes, not hours
By the time field units arrived on the scene at the mall, the RTIC had already identified the suspect and retrieved his photo and address — all within 13 minutes of the initial 911 call.
“Our own cops were impressed,” Bull said.
Officers located the suspect at a hotel quickly thereafter. Within hours, he was apprehended and taken into custody. The child involved in the abduction case was unharmed.
“Without Peregrine, in that case, it would have been many, many more hours,” Bull said. “It probably would have taken a very long time for us to put that out to the media to say, ‘Someone please identify this guy.’”
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Peregrine helped FCPD’s RTIC identify a child abduction suspect within 13 minutes by connecting physical descriptors, historical records, booking photos, and known associates in one search workflow.
CASE STUDY → How the Livermore Police Department Uses Data Integration To Power Real-Time Awareness and Investigations
How detectives connected exposure cases to identify a suspect
The same unified data environment also helps FCPD detectives connect cases that may otherwise appear unrelated. In a recent case, detectives used Peregrine to identify the suspect in an exposure case — and, in turn, solve a series of open cases.
Bull said FCPD’s detectives were brand-new to Peregrine at the time and still playing around with the platform to get used to it. One detective, who was working an exposure case that occurred in a county park, wanted to see if he could use Peregrine to link the case to a known offender in the area:
- The detective searched keywords like “exposure” to view relevant older cases in Peregrine.
- He drew a geofence — a virtual boundary around a specific location — around the county park, narrowing the results to nearby incidents.
- He identified a long list of prior exposure cases that had gone unsolved in the area.
- He read through the case summaries in Peregrine and noticed commonalities, including similar physical descriptions of the suspect.
- In the end, the detective tied together more than a dozen open exposure cases that seemed to have the same suspect.
From there, FCPD put out a bulletin detailing the suspect’s description and offering a reward for information. In response, someone submitted a tip, which ultimately led to detectives identifying the suspect and closing a number of open and pending exposure cases.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Unified search and geospatial filtering helped FCPD detectives connect more than a dozen exposure cases, identify a common suspect, and close unresolved investigations.
How real-time analytics reveal crime trends and hotspots
In addition to supporting active investigations, Peregrine streamlines analytics and reporting to illustrate trends in crime over time. Bull said he uses Peregrine to identify spikes in larceny, including high-risk retailers that may need more police support, and emerging crime hotspots.
Peregrine ingests open-source map data that details which businesses exist at which addresses, marrying that information with customer agencies’ data sources. This allows users to understand crime trends as they relate to specific businesses, answering questions such as:
- Which businesses are being targeted for larceny the most often?
- What is the incident history for a specific business?
When Bull notices spikes in larceny in FCPD’s jurisdiction, he uses this capability in Peregrine to see which retailers are being hit the hardest.
🔎 HOW DO REAL-TIME ANALYTICS HELP POLICE DEPARTMENTS ALLOCATE RESOURCES?
Real-time analytics help police departments compare recent activity against longer-term trends, identify emerging hotspots, and direct personnel, technology, or outreach toward locations where incidents are increasing.
“It helps us identify where we need to move resources or ship some of our technology that we could use to help those cases,” he said. He might even reach out to a targeted business to discuss a camera sharing agreement.
He also uses a dashboard of heat maps in Peregrine to identify emerging crime hotspots. One heat map shows priority crime hotspots from the last 90 days, for example, while another shows hotspots from the last 72 hours. Any major differences between these maps indicate new or unusual trends that may require attention.
“That helps us see where the problems are starting to bubble up so we can flatten them back out,” Bull said.
🔑 KEY TAKEAWAY: Real-time analytics help police leaders monitor crime trends, identify emerging hotspots, and direct resources where intervention may be needed.
Why real-time information centers need unified data
Real-time information centers depend on timely, connected insights. Peregrine helps FCPD bring live inputs, historical records, and investigative data into one searchable platform, giving personnel the context they need to support active investigations and effective resource allocation.
At FCPD, unified data has helped investigators identify suspects faster, connect unresolved cases, and use analytics to inform where to allocate RTIC, detective, patrol, and technology resources.
Contact our team to learn how Peregrine helps public safety agencies unify data, support investigations, and make faster resource decisions.
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