The Real-Time Intelligence Center is a room in Asheville where police watch feeds and data from across the city on a video wall, in real time, and the software layer underneath it, which is the part that matters.
The short version
Think of it as a hub with spokes. The hub is Fusus, a platform owned by Axon (the taser and body-camera company, which bought Fusus in 2024 for $240 million). The spokes are every camera and sensor the platform can reach:
- 11 Flock license plate readers already scanning across Asheville, about 3.1 million plates read between April 2024 and December 2025
- Axon body cameras and car cameras on every officer and cruiser
- Roughly two dozen police drones
- Private security cameras: this is the one most people miss. Businesses, churches, and homeowners are invited to “register” cameras or install a device that gives police live streaming access to them. The county’s version of this network already includes ~1,500 cameras inside schools.
Fusus markets this as “one pane of glass”: everything, one screen, live.
What it costs
- $1.14 million in federal money (an earmark Rep. Chuck Edwards secured after city staff requested it in 2024 without telling council), covering the video wall (~$400K) and buildout
- A 7.5-year contract with Axon running to 2033, bundling Fusus software (~$467K over the term), body cameras, tasers, drones, and cloud storage
- Ongoing operational costs (~$250K), plus whatever renewal costs Axon names when the city is locked in. At the May 12 hearing, a resident who negotiates contracts professionally noted Axon publishes its terms and customers “sign what is on the page”; another documented Axon’s ~25%-per-year price escalation pattern, which Axon itself calls its “Flywheel of Growth.”
What it can do
Data from Asheville’s plate readers is shared with law enforcement agencies within a 500-mile, multi-state radius, a circle that reaches Atlanta, Nashville, Washington DC, and states with very different laws about abortion, immigration, and protest. Retention is currently set at 30 days (state law allows 90).
The RTIC’s stated purpose is responding to violent crime. Nothing in the approved package structurally limits it to that. What limits exist are APD policies: self-written, self-administered, and changeable without a council vote. See the Promise Tracker for every commitment APD has made on the record, and its status.
What it is not (yet)
- Facial recognition: APD says it will not be used, and the civil-liberties resolution (26-97) contains an exclusion. But a resolution is not an ordinance: no enforcement mechanism, no penalty, reversible by any future council in a single vote, and the (still-unreleased) contract’s terms are unknown. GAP of Asheville asked for an enforceable ban; that was never on the table.
- Federal/ICE access: APD says data won’t be shared with immigration enforcement without a court order, and that search terms related to immigration and reproductive care are blocked. These blocks are APD-administered keyword filters; nationally, equivalent safeguards have been routinely circumvented with vague search entries, and ICE has reached identical systems through informal requests to neighboring agencies.
- Independent oversight: none exists. The “civil liberties resolution” attached to the vote states the technology will be used “solely for lawful purposes.” It is a statement of intent, not an ordinance. It creates no enforcement mechanism, no reporting duty to the public, and no consequences.
Who runs it
APD, under Interim Chief Jackie Stepp, with quarterly internal audits. The center is expected fully operational spring/summer 2027. Public tours run every other Thursday, 2–4 PM (828-259-5881).
Why I think you should care
Asheville already lived through a demonstration of what this infrastructure does under pressure: in 2020, APD tear-gassed protesters and destroyed a medic station, then spent six figures on a PR firm to manage the fallout. The RTIC is that same institution, given a permanent, city-wide, real-time sensory system, approved at midnight, without the contract on the table, over the objection of nearly every resident who managed to speak. The question isn’t whether today’s APD means well. It’s what this system makes possible for whoever controls it between now and 2033.
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