Kern County Sheriff’s Office – Live Dispatch Calls
I write about crime fiction. Specifically, I write about a female detective, Annie Avants, who works in the Robbery/Homicide Unit at the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The biggest city in Kern County is Bakersfield.
One of my fascinations with law enforcement for as long as I can remember was listening to the ‘police calls’ on a scanner. It wasn’t always easy to get the codes back in the 70s, or a list of the “10 Codes”, but it was possible. I became so addicted that I even kept it going (softly) at night so I wouldn’t miss anything.
One night we had a prowler and I called the Sheriff’s Office. I told the dispatcher what was going on and where the prowler had headed. I then gave a physical description of the prowler. I had to laugh when the dispatcher said to me, “That’s a good description. You sound just like a dispatcher.”
Now I’m living in Morocco and I wouldn’t be able to pick up the police calls from Kern County. Bummer. . . But, to my amazement I found that the Sheriff’s Office website has a link you can click on and, lo and behold, you can listen to the police calls from Kern County no matter where you are.
If you go to this link: Live Dispatch it will take you to a page on the Kern County Sheriff’s Office website. You then click on the picture of a speaker and you will get an icon on your desktop that says “listen.” There are directions on the page about various applications you can use to listen, such as iTunes, RealPlayer, and WimAmp and how to download them if you need to.
That’s all you do! When you want to listen in, you just click the icon on your desktop. Sometimes the calls are unavailable for whatever reason, but most of the time they come in loud and clear.
But, what are they saying?? Sometimes it takes a while for your ear to tune into the different codes. Here’s a cheat sheet I use to help me remember the different codes:
Have fun listening. You never know what you will hear!
Kern County Sheriff’s Office – Live Dispatch Calls is a post from: Renee Benzaim, Writer
