Onondaga County

Julie Corn

Emergency Intelligence Leader

Julie Corn is the commissioner of the Onondaga County department of emergency communications/911 in Syracuse, NY. The Onondaga County 911 Center is nationally accredited and is the third largest in New York. Corn spent 17 years in the U.S. defense and intelligence community in Washington, DC before entering public safety in 2019. She has a master’s in strategic intelligence from National Intelligence University.

Intelligence Centers: What they are and What They Can become in Public Safety

It’s easy to envision intelligence centers from TV shows and movies, a room full of stressed people, each at their multi-screen workspaces, huge monitors covering the walls, supervisors hovering and gathering information to make decisions. Much of this is true in real life. But a better visual is the intelligence center as a hub for people and information, a center point. The intelligence community has intelligence centers, the military has intelligence centers, public safety has 911 call centers. The initial 911 industry model did not begin with an end goal of becoming an information hub. It began with the goal of being a hub to answer emergency calls, hence why 911 advocates have petitioned to change the job classification from administrative to first responder status. The idea that people could answer phones and send police, fire or emergency medical services to citizens from one place was revolutionary at the time. What they didn’t realize was they were building the bones of an intelligence center. The military and intelligence communities use their centers to analyze information so an informed action can be taken. We do something very similar at 911 with one piece missing but it is coming, and in many ways, it’s already here.

911 Centers: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

When I walked into our 911 center in 2019, I felt a familiar sense of place to the intelligence centers I knew of my past. A collaborative workspace with interconnected desks, bringing staff together to create order among the chaos of information flowing with speed and complexity. I was given pictures from the early 1990s when the center began and could see how paper cards were used to send information from call to dispatch. Fast forward 30 plus years, the room isn’t that different, the information isn’t that different, it’s how it’s processed that changed. Introductions of systems like Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) were revolutionary in bridging the gap of information flow beyond radio transmissions and aided in information sharing between 911 and first responders via electronic means. Now 911 centers are seeing a new revolution–the dawn of AI and common operational picture tools that can tell a story, frame a history and create a visual all around a 911 event that used to be handwritten on notecards and walked across a room. 911 is evolving to generate and share intelligence out of caller information that will have direct impact on first responder preparation and safety in the field.

“911 centers can climb the mountain with the intelligence they gather, but they need a partner to reach the peak.”

AI: The Catalyst in the 911 Intelligence Revolution

For decades, 911 has perfected processing calls and dispatching resources–the information in, information out model. The public safety system has been comfortable with this model, but 911 could do so much more with their data to prepare first responders. I like to equate this challenge to a mountain of data that 911 has been unable to climb. The factors holding them back are real and perpetual resources and time. Having the staff to meet the demand of 911 calls and maximizing the initial 120 seconds of time to get help where it needs to go. It’s no wonder it’s been impossible to turn 911 information into intelligence because there was no tool that could analyze information within the 120 seconds that matter, until now–enter AI.

AI tools are in their infancy but already they can transcribe, translate, summarize and flag keywords. Soon they will mine historical information on subjects and geospatial locations, and the future holds potential for mining this with a jurisdiction’s records to answer complex questions, perform deductive reasoning and pattern analysis all in seconds. Imagine what is next to support the 911 staff, provide assessments of the story and better prepare first responders.

Partnership is Key: The Intelligence Horizon

Public safety is a team sport. So is intelligence. The tragedy of 911 broke down silos within the U.S. intelligence community and forced agencies to share information in new ways. No longer did one three letter agency know more than another. Information sharing became our force multiplier and made the United States safer and stronger because of it. When thinking about an intelligence revolution in public safety, real-time crime centers have to be part of the conversation. Across jurisdictions, they take on different names and responsibilities regarding how “real-time” they may be, but most are consistent in being experts on live camera monitoring, investigative support and strategic analysis. 911 centers can climb the mountain with the intelligence they gather, but they need a partner to reach the peak. Cameras, license plate readers and drones are equally important to assessing the story of a 911 event. Where 911 and crime centers can meet in that “real-time” space is key to sharing information through common operational picture tools allowing us to break out of our outdated silos. That’s the future, and that mountain peak, it’s well within reach.