2:44pm September 9, 2014

Police and fire scanners

…are interesting not just from the standpoint of “hey, where’s that fire engine going, and is it going to make my bus late?”, but also because they provide a window into the kinds of things (and people) that prompt the most calls. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard “disabled person decides to go for a walk” framed as “wandering”, or the number of times I’ve heard the cops summoned to check out a “suspicious person” who turns out to just be a random black guy trying to exist in public. Teenagers also get a disproportionate number of calls, especially non-white teenagers.

So while I will put up with “ha ha, you’re such a busybody!” jokes from people who see me loading up the scanner app, I do think there are valid reasons for listening to this stuff that have nothing to do with “nosiness” and everything to do with “wanting a look at what actually happens in your community, without waiting for the newspaper to filter it.”

Notes: