Scanning the Scanners
A while back I started following a Facebook page for the people who monitor the scanners in Genesee County, MI. Not sure of the reason, but I've been following it for a while. Probably started to keep tabs on the crime in the area where my mother still resides. Anyway, the other day she was telling me about something and I went to the scanner page to see if they had more info. Nope. So I searched for related pages and found the one for Flint, MI. I followed it.
It's an educational experience, lemme tell ya. Not that it's telling me anything I didn't already suspect. Crime in Flint is rampant and as out of control as it was in the '80s.
I looked for a similar page here, but no. I guess we're too rural or something. I searched Greene County, MO - which is Springfield. Springfield is crimey enough that it's now a regular contributor to Live PD. Hell, when I still watched the local news, it seemed crimey enough for me to think it was trying to compete against Flint for most crime-ridden smallish city in the US. :shrug: But no scanner page. It would've been interesting to see.
Anyway, whoever contributes to these scanner pages on FB apparently listens to the local police scanner and then types up whatever it is they hear. (Sometimes with horribly atrocious spelling errors, but I guess that can't be helped.) For instance, Friday night there was a person with a gun in the lobby of a hospital located in the downtown Flint area. There was also 'unknown trouble' at a local strip club, two calls to area bars, numerous domestic disturbances, several overdoses, lots of 'shots fired', and a fight involving 25+ people. Makes me want to kidnap Mom and move her somewhere safe - if such a place even exists anymore. (For the record, she does not live in Flint. Just a suburb of it. Which is bad enough, lemme tell ya.)
Personally, I don't have a scanner. Like I said, rural. It would have to have a really huge range to get me any kind of anything interesting. I might maybe catch an accident call on the highway near here, but I can read about those in the paper later. It might've been interesting to listen to when we had those two murders we've had near here.
Still, I'm finding it all interesting. And who knows, I might find some story ideas in there somewhere. ;o)
Do you listen to the scanner or follow any scanner pages on FB?
It's an educational experience, lemme tell ya. Not that it's telling me anything I didn't already suspect. Crime in Flint is rampant and as out of control as it was in the '80s.
I looked for a similar page here, but no. I guess we're too rural or something. I searched Greene County, MO - which is Springfield. Springfield is crimey enough that it's now a regular contributor to Live PD. Hell, when I still watched the local news, it seemed crimey enough for me to think it was trying to compete against Flint for most crime-ridden smallish city in the US. :shrug: But no scanner page. It would've been interesting to see.
Anyway, whoever contributes to these scanner pages on FB apparently listens to the local police scanner and then types up whatever it is they hear. (Sometimes with horribly atrocious spelling errors, but I guess that can't be helped.) For instance, Friday night there was a person with a gun in the lobby of a hospital located in the downtown Flint area. There was also 'unknown trouble' at a local strip club, two calls to area bars, numerous domestic disturbances, several overdoses, lots of 'shots fired', and a fight involving 25+ people. Makes me want to kidnap Mom and move her somewhere safe - if such a place even exists anymore. (For the record, she does not live in Flint. Just a suburb of it. Which is bad enough, lemme tell ya.)
Personally, I don't have a scanner. Like I said, rural. It would have to have a really huge range to get me any kind of anything interesting. I might maybe catch an accident call on the highway near here, but I can read about those in the paper later. It might've been interesting to listen to when we had those two murders we've had near here.
Still, I'm finding it all interesting. And who knows, I might find some story ideas in there somewhere. ;o)
Do you listen to the scanner or follow any scanner pages on FB?
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