Montgomery County Sheriff | The Sheriff's Real Time Crime Center
The Montgomery County Sheriff's Office has run a Real Time Crime Center since October 2017. It enters the county's record as job titles on a payroll list and as a software subscription, and no document the Court has ever seen describes what it can watch.
At a glance
- First in the record
- 10 October 2017, as staff transfers into "Sher-Real time Crime Ctr" and "Sheriff/Real Time Crime Ctr", effective 7 October 2017 [1]
- Staffing
- Crime analysts in the county's own position titles, "CRIME ANALST I-RTCC" and "CRIME ANALST II-RTCC", and from July 2026 an intelligence analyst, "INTEL ANLST I-RTCC-1" [2] [3] [4]
- Software
- A Real Time Crime Investigation System from LeadsOnline, LLC, bought as a sole source on 24 September 2024 for three years at $52,248, $53,815 and $55,429 [5]
- Renewed
- 28 October 2025, the second of three renewal options, on the consent agenda [6]
- An order establishing it
- None. No item creating, describing, siting or funding the center appears in the Commissioners Court minutes the County Clerk publishes [1] [7]
- What it can see
- Not stated. No county record names a camera feed, a database or a data source the center can reach [5] [7]
- Whether private cameras feed it
- Not stated in any county record [7]
How it happened
- Deployment
Three people are moved into it
A Sheriff's Office reorganization transfers a crime analyst from the narcotics task force and two deputies from patrol into the Real Time Crime Center, effective 7 October 2017. The transfers are personnel items inside the consent block, and they are the first mention of the unit in the county's record. [1]
- Debate
A commissioner asks for an update
Commissioner Noack reports having asked the Sheriff to bring the Court an update on law enforcement activities, "including recruiting and the real-time crime lab", and asks that it be put on the following court's agenda. [7]
- Procurement
A Real Time Crime Investigation System, sole sourced
The Court approves a discretionary exemption as a sole source for a Real Time Crime Investigation System from LeadsOnline, LLC for the Sheriff's Office, three years at $52,248, $53,815 and $55,429. The minutes head the item "REAL TIME CROM INVESTIGATION SYSTEM". [5]
- Expansion
Renewed, on consent
The Court exercises the second of three renewal options on the LeadsOnline system, inside the consent block. [6]
A real time crime center is a room where camera feeds, license plate reads, dispatch calls and records systems are watched together, so that an officer on the way to a call can be told what the cameras and the databases already know. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office has had one for nine years. The county’s public record contains almost nothing about it.
It arrives as a payroll line
On 10 October 2017 the Commissioners Court approved a Sheriff’s Office reorganization. Inside the consent block, among a hundred routine personnel items, three of them read differently. One transfers a Crime Analyst I “from Sheriff/Narcotic task to Sher-Real time Crime Ctr”. Two more move deputies from the Town Center substation and from Patrol West to the “Sheriff/Real Time Crime Ctr”. All three take effect on 7 October 2017.[1]
There is no item before that one creating the center, and none after it describing what it does. The unit exists in the county’s record the way a department exists in a payroll system: as an abbreviation attached to job titles. “CRIME ANALST I-RTCC” and “CRIME ANALST II-RTCC” recur in the personnel lists through 2021 and 2023,[2][3] and by July 2026 the list carries “INTEL ANLST I-RTCC-1”, an intelligence analyst.[4]
The phrase “real time crime center” is never written out in full in any Montgomery County minutes. The closest the Court comes is on 24 January 2023, when Commissioner Noack reports having asked the Sheriff for an update on law enforcement activities “including recruiting and the real-time crime lab, and asked that it be on the agenda for the following court”.[7]
And then it arrives as a subscription
On 24 September 2024 the Court approved a discretionary exemption as a sole source for “Real Time Crime Investigation System (RTC) as a sole source from LeadsOnline, LLC, for three (3) years. First year (1 st ) $52,248, second year (2 nd ) $53,815, and third year (3 rd ) $55,429 for the Sheriff’s Office.”[5] The heading the minutes give the item spells the word wrong: “REAL TIME CROM INVESTIGATION SYSTEM (RTC)”. A year later, on 28 October 2025, the Court renewed it inside the consent block, exercising the second of three renewal options.[6]
LeadsOnline began as a service for tracking property through pawn shops and second-hand dealers. The county record does not say what its real time crime product includes here, what data it draws on, or who can query it.
Why the shape matters
A room like this is not bought. It is staffed, and then subscribed to, and each of those steps is a routine item a commissioners court approves in a block with the mosquito spraying contract. Nothing about that is irregular, and no rule was broken. It is simply that a capability which changes what a county can know about the people inside it was assembled without ever being the subject of a decision the public was invited to attend.
What we do not know
- What the Real Time Crime Center is, when it opened and where it is.
- Which camera feeds, databases and data sources it can reach, and whether any of them are private cameras.
- What the LeadsOnline Real Time Crime Investigation System does and what it can search.
- Whether the center has a governing policy, and who approves what it may be used for.
- Whether the update Commissioner Noack asked for in January 2023 was ever given, and what it said.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Montgomery County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Montgomery County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 10 October 2017, personnel items · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 27 April 2021, personnel items · Meeting record · · accessed
- 3. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 10 October 2023, personnel items · Meeting record · · accessed
- 4. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 9 July 2026, personnel items · Meeting record · · accessed
- 5. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 24 September 2024, motion 10 · Meeting record · · accessed
- 6. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 28 October 2025, consent item F1b · Meeting record · · accessed
- 7. Montgomery County Commissioners Court, minutes, 24 January 2023 · Meeting record · · accessed
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