Wind sounds are playing on the kitchen speaker. The tv is on, but silent; “Little House on the Prairie” is playing. Now and then I get an alert from one of the cameras informing me that a car/person/pet is nearby. The air conditioner cycles on and off, and the soft whirring of a fan can be heard, too.
Know what I can’t hear? I can’t hear the sound of my police scanner. It went mostly silent a few weeks ago and I didn’t even notice. Not right away, anyway.
You know how it is when you suddenly realize you haven’t heard from a Facebook friend in ages, then you go check their profile page to see if they’re okay only to find out they’re no longer your friend? Yeah, been there, done that. It happens.
So, I found my trusted expert and asked about the scanner silence. Word came almost immediately: Our local police have switched to STARCOM. For those of us who may not understand what that means, here it is in a nutshell: We will probably not be able to hear what’s going on around us criminal-wise for the foreseeable future. Traffic is now encrypted.
This makes me sad. And a wee bit afraid.
See, I’ve been a nosy person most of my life. It has irritated more than a few folks, yet some of those very people have come to me when they needed something checked out. They knew I would keep trying until I found answers. Then some of them would go back to calling me “Miss Nosy” again, but whatever.
The first time I heard a scanner outside of a police station was in a newsroom. It was absolutely fascinating. We would all slow our typing, stop talking, and listen…oh, what fun that was. For a nosy person, the temptation was beyond belief. And, our finances.
Still, once I started at our local paper, I convinced hubby that I needed one so I could get the scoop on other papers. (One paper in particular, but then I became good friends with their reporter, and suddenly the scoop wasn’t important anymore. Just kidding. I wanted that news first.)
Gary grudgingly allowed the scanner in the house, but he put his foot down about its location. It couldn’t be in the living room (the tv was in there, you know, and if it went off, he pitched a fit because he couldn’t hear his show), basically anywhere downstairs. And it couldn’t be “on” in the bedroom. I put it in there because I usually went upstairs first, but I had to turn it off or all the way down when he was ready for bed.
I put my thinking cap on, felt the idea pop into my head, and promptly bought a baby monitor. From there, I plugged in the whole shebang and brought the receiver downstairs.
Gary eyed the new bright yellow and white contraption, then he looked at me. “What’s this?” he said, as the monitor cackled to life with some scanner traffic. “Well,” I told him, “you said no scanner downstairs. This isn’t a scanner. It’s a baby monitor.”
He looked at me. “It’s a loophole. You found a loophole,” and he walked away toward his man cave.
Lest you think I was a meanie, I did turn the volume down so it wouldn’t bother my sweetie. Thing is, that thing was a blessing. We heard when his mom had fallen (medical traffic), when her house was being broken into, and when someone staying at her house ran from the basement and was tackled by police.
We heard when Gary’s cousin was taken by ambulance, and the same for family friends. But, one of the most important pieces of information happened just a couple of years ago.
I was sitting in the back room enjoying a lovely summer evening when the scanner popped and I learned a police chase was happening. An on-foot police chase. Through my backyard, complete with a possible weapon (gun), and the news included the possible reason: attempted murder. I sat there for a second or two, glanced over at the open back door that was letting in a gentle breeze, stood up, walked to the door, slammed it shut and locked it. Then I went closer to the scanner and listened while the man was caught, tackled, and taken into custody. I wouldn’t have known any of that unless I’d heard the scanner.
It wasn’t all seriousness, though. Recently there’s been a lot of community contact reported, and some of those were fun to listen to. “Put me down for community contact. We discussed facial hair.” Or, the weather. Or, well, fill in the blank. It was also interesting to hear about the officer sent to break up a fight between a man and someone in a hotdog suit.
I miss it all.
I get it. I do. Some might use their personal scanner to find out when the police are on their way to stop their shenanigans, thereby getting away with stuff. Some of that could be a serious crime. But for those of us who relied on knowing when possible criminal activity could be happening to a family member or friend, or even finding out police are chasing an armed person through the back yard, well, we are saddened to see those times come to an end.
Sad, and yes, a little afraid.
