“We provide a Google Earthlike image every second at a resolution where we can just barely see a person coming and going from a murder,” McNutt said.

Once the firm is notified by a 911 call or a shots-fired notification, he said, “we’re able to zoom in anywhere within the city to the location of a reported crime.”

He said in an interview that John and Laura Arnold, a billionaire couple from Houston, have offered to fund a three-year pilot program in a city with serious violent crime problems and that “St. Louis is an acceptable one.”

He said such a donation also would cover the hiring of analysts and additional police and an outside assessment of the program’s success.

He said the Arnolds already made such an offer to Baltimore, which McNutt said has been weighing the idea for three years but has yet to decide.

The Arnolds could not be reached for comment Tuesday. McNutt said John Arnold, with whom he has been dealing with, “may be willing to fund both but at this point, he’s offered to fund one.”