Webb County Sheriff | The Sheriff's Real Time Crime Center

A real time crime center is a room where camera feeds, 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. Webb County has one. It cost the county nothing to build, and the county’s own record does not say what it can see.

It arrives sized, and priced, in a single item

On 27 February 2023 the Commissioners Court authorized a twenty-four month service agreement with Fusus for the Sheriff’s Office, at up to $350,000. The item says what the money buys: software and associated hardware, initial setup, access and training of users, “to include 2,000 data points and 2,000 public/private video feeds”.^[1]

That number is the useful part. Two thousand feeds is not a camera purchase, it is a capacity, and the phrase “public/private” says the design contemplates cameras the county does not own. The item does not say which cameras, or how many of the two thousand were ever connected.

The Court approved it on a discretionary exemption under section 262.024(7)(A) of the Texas Local Government Code, the provision for items whose competition is precluded by patents, copyrights or monopolies. No bid was sought. The documents filed with the item include a Fusus product sheet headed “Real-Time Crime Center in the Cloud” and a sole source letter.^[1]

This one was moved and voted on its own, and carried five to nothing.

Then it grows, on consent

The rest arrived in the block of routine items the Court approves in one vote. In March 2024 it approved two video wall monitors at up to $149,996.37 and six thermal camera kits at up to $119,983.98, the item explaining that expanding border security “and integration with real-time crime center requires expansion of the current infrastructure”.^[2] In May 2024 it approved $134,900 of further hardware, in an item that states plainly what the software does: “The FUSUS system manages the real time crime center and border security assets.”^[3]

In November 2024 the vendor changed name. Axon had bought Fusus, and the Court authorized a thirty-six month agreement with “AXON (formerly FUSUS)” at up to $450,000, on the same exemption, for what the item calls the continuation of the real time crime package.^[4] That one passed inside the consent block too.

Who pays for it

Every dollar of it came from Operation Lone Star, the state border security program administered by the Governor’s office. The account numbers on the items say so, and the items say so in words: the Sheriff’s Office “was awarded OLS grant funds” for the package.^[1][4]

Both agreements also carry the same sentence about what happens next. The renewal option is $150,000 a year, and “Renewal options are not covered by OLS Grant”.^[1][4] The three-year term that began in November 2024 runs into late 2027. Nothing in the county’s record says which fund pays the renewal after that, or what happens to two thousand camera feeds if nobody does.

Why the shape matters

Grant money is how a county acquires a capability it would have to argue for if it were spending its own. A $450,000 line in a county budget is a debate. A $450,000 line in a state border grant is a consent item. Nobody had to hide anything for that to be true, and no rule was broken: the exemption is in the statute, the grant is public, the item was posted.

What did not happen is the part worth noticing. At no point did the Court take up the question of what a room watching two thousand camera feeds should and should not be used for, because at no point was that the question in front of it. The question in front of it was whether to accept money the state was offering.

The county’s record contains no use policy, no retention period and no statement of which cameras feed the system. Those are records questions now, and the page on how to ask for a record explains how to put them.