[Scan-DC] Scanner heads

[Alan Henney]

As I recall, Vernon Herron was against outsiders monitoring PG’s radio system.  But now he’s an academic...

Scanner heads

BYLINE: Rachel Cromidas

SECTION: Pg. 6

LENGTH: 1086 words

Chicago's police scanner is no joke -- and there's a whole audience tuning in


"Shots fired." For anyone in the habit of listening to the Chicago Police Department's scanner radio transmissions, those two words break through the cacophony of addresses, numbers and codes that police officers and their dispatchers rattle off at all hours. On a recent weekday evening, they were the words that sent Justin Jackson to the corner of 95th Street and Princeton Avenue. A man had been shot in the leg, police officers said over the scanner, and he had just run into a Roseland barber shop looking for help. Jackson, 23, of Harvey, Ill., is a full-time firefighter and part-time photographer, with a fascination with local law enforcement scanners that he can trace back to middle school. 

He spends his free time driving around the city and the south suburbs, listening in on several radios and his cell phone for shootings, fires and car crashes, then heads to the scenes hoping to photograph some of the mayhem. "When you listen to the radios, there are times when police and fire are just talking and talking," Jackson said, "but that split second when you hear the dispatcher come on and say a call of shots fired and a person's shot, it can go from very boring to your adrenaline pumping." Jackson is one of an unknown number of scanner enthusiasts-- dubbed "scanner nerds" by some--who obsessively listen to the cackle of the CPD's radio transmissions, which are separated into 13 zones, as well as other local first-responder radio activity.

Some stay up late into the night tweeting the most alarming, interesting, or ironic tidbits they overhear, via popular twitter accounts like the unofficial @Chicago_Scanner. Others, like the authors of the anonymous local community blog "Crime in Boystown," keep a running unofficial tally of criminal activity in their neighborhoods. And a few people, who typically moonlight as freelance photojournalists like Jackson, follow the scanner's leads straight to crime scenes. "Some districts I go to, the police know me by name," said Jackson, as he crouched on a traffic island in the middle of 95th Street, snapping photos of the shooting victim being loaded into an ambulance. 

"Some districts where they don't know me, they go, `Who the hell are you? Get out of here!' " With the right tools--namely a radio, a computer or one of the growing number of cellphone apps--anyone can access most types of police scanner activity, which is transmitted over public airwaves. But the advent of twitter accounts that share scanner activity in real time has raised public safety questions among law enforcement officials. In the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon last year, the Boston Police Department took to Twitter to implore users to stop tweeting about police operations being broadcast over the scanners, for fear that criminals could use the real-time information to evade them. 

CPD spokesman Adam Collins said the department has no problem with people listening in. "People throughout the country, and presumably the world, have made a hobby of listening to radio activity on police scanners for decades. As long as they don't interfere with police work, we have no issue with it," he said in an email. In recent years some police and fire departments have moved to encrypt some of their broadcasts, including a handful of departments in the Chicago suburbs. 

Vernon Herron, a retired police commander and current senior policy analyst at the University of Maryland, said public police scanners have the potential to do both good and harm, as long as listeners remember that the words they are hearing represent real, ongoing police activity, and have yet to be officially verified "Police scanners provide citizens with a realistic idea of what goes on in the daily lives of police work," he said. "But also, criminal cases come to mind where criminals have used these portable scanners when committing robberies or other crimes, where they hear the police are responding and they make good their escape." 

Chicagoland has one of the most robust scanner clubs in the country, the Chicago Area Radio Monitoring Association, with over 1,800 email list subscribers, according to Dave Weaver, a longtime scanner enthusiast and the founder of the local scanner website Radioman911.com. Weaver's site has more than 1,000 members. Weaver noted that scanner hobbyists are mostly male, and many, including him, describe getting into the scanners through a family member who worked in public service. Jackson obtained his first scanner in 7th grade with the help of his father, who shot photographs for the Chicago Sun-Times. Jackson frequently sends his crime scene photos to local news outlets, and some have been purchased by the Tribune Company, which owns RedEye. 

Jackson seems to have a story from almost every block he passes as he drives around the 22nd District on the far South Side, making his way toward his favorite waiting spot, a Walgreens parking lot at 115th Street and Halsted Street. He says he's watched a fireman carry a scorched infant out of a burning building; police investigating a homicide, with a body and its blood in plain sight; a suburban police chase; and he once got stuck at a crime scene when police roped off the area surrounding his car with police tape. "My first photo in the Sun-Times was freshman year of high school, of a hostage situation" he said. "I do it because I get great shots. 

The silhouette of a fireman in front of a burning building, where all you have is flames ... It's the feeling of getting a shot that no one else has." For Weaver, following the scanner traffic is a kind of civic participation. "It's for people interested in knowing what's happening out there in their neighborhood on a real-time basis," he said. "This is stuff that should be listened to, by off-duty firemen, by people, anybody with a curiosity about what their public servants are up to." rcromidas at tribune.com | @rachelcromidas

By Rachel Cromidas RedEye The Chicago Police Department uses 12 scanner zones to communicate with officers in its various districts. Most districts share a scanner in adjacent pairs, but a few are their own zone because they see so much activity. Each zone can be accessed by tapping into its particular radio channel. http://gis.chicagopolice.org/pdfs/district_beat.pdf 10 and 11 25 and 15 14 and 12 7 and 8 6 and 4 22 and 5 3 alone 2 alone 1 and 18 19 alone 20 and 24 16 and 17 ct14 0014 140128 N S 0000000000 00004366




The Repository (Canton, Ohio)

January 27, 2014 Monday

Citizens Hooked On Scanners; 
Listeners to police calls aren't just tuning in for entertainment value

BYLINE: Kelly Byer; Repository staff writer

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 669 words

She keeps three digital handheld police scanners on almost every hour of the day.

Chris Beadle even takes one to her retail job.

"In the beginning, it was kind of just for fun, because things weren't that bad," the Canton native said. "But now it's for awareness." Beadle is among those who like to eavesdrop on the action as law-enforcement forces battle crime in the area. As young as age 7, Beadle recalls her father listening to "a big old box thing." Her family would pile into the car and go to the scene of a call to see what was happening, a practice she said she never would do today.

Beadle continued listening to police scanners throughout the years, and the hobby her father introduced morphed into a sense of public service for the Canton community. 

GATEWAY TO CRIME WATCH

The same objective drives North Lawrence resident Deborah Bartlett, who listens to scanners to learn about crime in her community. She picks up small area departments in southwestern Stark County through an online broadcast service and tries to tune in five times a week.

The online criminal justice student at Colorado Technical University always has been interested in crime, but two unrelated events pushed her to be more proactive. Bartlett said she was sexually assaulted about four years ago and her ex-husband, William Bartlett, was threatened by a police officer during a traffic stop in 2011.

"Crime happens everywhere, and it can happen with anyone," she said. "Anyone can snap." HEIGHTENED SENSE OF AWARENESS

Bartlett and Beadle share what they hear via Face book.

Bartlett created a group earlier this year to monitor crime in Stark County and provide information about area resources.

Her goal is to encourage community members to attend government meetings pertaining to public safety and learn about crime prevention.

"I hope people just start getting active instead of just sitting back, complaining, being scared, being frustrated," she said. "Because that's what we're supposed to do as a society, come together and work together to make our communities better." Both scanner listeners said knowing crime trends for a certain area helps people to be more alert, a sentiment echoed by Capt. Jack Angelo of the Canton Police Department.

"It helps in the sense that people are aware if something's going on in their neighborhood, and it lets them know to be wary of what's happening," he said.

Angelo encourages people to contact police if they see or hear anything that may help law enforcement but not to get involved.

BEST USED IN MODERATION

Canton police, like various other law enforcement agencies across the nation, have encrypted radio exchanges for about four years. It's a method used to block the public.

"The bad guys have scanners, too," Angelo said.

"That was always the problem, and we don't want them to hear us when we were coming to a call." Those without access to high-tech equipment or an encryption key will only hear what Angelo describes as "garbled" talk when listening to digital scanners.

Dennis Moriarty, with the Canton Amateur Radio Club, said public safety agencies used to have their own individual frequencies.

As technology advanced, some departments switched from analog to digital radio transmissions that allow users to communicate between several frequencies.

"It's all done electronically with computer processing," he said. "So today, the idea of having a scanner radio to listen to police, sheriff, fire, is not as popular as it was many years ago." Bartlett and Beadle are still at it, though, and said they are careful about what they share so information doesn't tip off less law-abiding citizens.

They refrain from publishing names and personal information, but share crime and arrest news relevant to the Canton area from other media and police sources.

"If it's something that's going to protect the community and help others, better believe I'll be the first to put it out there," Beadle said.

Reach Kelly at 330-580-8323 or kelly.byer at cantonrep.com On Twitter:@kbyerrep

LOAD-DATE: January 28, 2014

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

NOTES: "I hope people just start getting active instead of just sitting back, complaining, being scared, being frustrated." DEBORAH BARTLETT

GRAPHIC: REPOSITORY SCOTT HECKEL Deborah Bartlett listens to a police scanner online from the home of her boyfriend in Orrville. She also manages the Stark County Crime Watchers Face book page to inform community members. REPOSITORY SCOTT HECKEL Reflected in Deborah Bartlett's glasses is the Stark County Crime Watchers Face book page, which she manages.