Our friend Shayne has streamed Baltimore City Police radio transmissions from the Northern and Northwestern districts, and you can tune in at Scanbaltimore.com!
The links to the feeds are on the left of the page.
For the most action, tune in Fridays and Saturdays at about 2:15 a.m. (though there's always something going on).
For it to make any sense you'll need to refer to your "10-Codes"
13 comments:
Very cool!
I looked around and didn't see any mention of it in the Sun (big surprise). Do we know if it turned out to be a homicide?
Dontchya think that streaming deployment data has some strategic value to perps with a criminal activity in progress in those Districts ??
I don't know about this idea...
Galt:
Any serious criminal would get a scanner that could listen to police radios.
While there may some possible limited value in a criminal listening to police calls, police scanners, as ppatin reports, have been around for years--though they have become much more expensive since the departments have moved to 800 Megahertz. Officers on special assignments use other channels that could only be picked up randomly on a scanner. In many cases they use small point-to-point radios, which won't be picked up on scanners. And surveillance operations are well aware of potential monitoring, so they use code. Of course, nowadays, it is common to simply use cell phones or Nextel type phones.
So, basically, you do get to hear your tax dollars at work, and to hear what's going on. And yeah, I guess real sophisticated criminals like we see in the movies might use the streaming somehow, but they would have little info on special deployments or even how many and where all officers are.
Northern ain't nuthin' (technical terms) at 2:15am compared to Central, or Southeastern.
And even so, when a gun-bearing hoodlum was called into 911, Northern STILL responded 40 minutes late last night.
(technical term : USELESS)
I'm just SO inclined to citizen patrol my neighborhood for them!
At least once a month I post something and someone comments along the lines of, "you shouldn't post that information, because someone might do/ think/ perceive the wrong thing" (see Jenna Bush's address, Sarah Kreager's rap sheet, various remarks over the years that the whole blog is a bummer and gives "people" the wrong idea about Baltimore and how safe it is).
It's never the commentor who doesn't want or can't handle the info, of course, it's some other shady group of people. Like someone on the fence about doing Jenna harm would find it too much trouble to look in the yellow pages to track her down, but finding the address on some blog would push them over the edge. Or it wouldn't occur to the bus beaters' lawyers to do a check on Sarah Kreager's background until I brought it up.
Anyhoo in the case here, criminals have no compunction about calling in fake emergencies when the need arises (see Edna McAbier). I don't see how listening to radio chatter would be helpful.
It certainly gives you respect for the crap police have to deal with. It seems like at least a third of the calls are total BS, about 1/4 are crazy people or drunks, and then maybe 1 percent are some kind of batshit emergency.
Sheesh, John---what n'hood do you live in in the Great Northern? Waverly, I believe. Did you call it in.
By the way, do you know anything about Charles Village's efforts on security and their Citizens-on-Patrol stuff?
When we lived on Barre Street, every time I watched Channel 19 (a DC-area Public Television station), the dispatch came through the TV for fire and rescue/EMS services. It was bizarre...and somewhat annoying when I was actually trying to watch something. But at least I didn't need a scanner!
There's something soothing and reassuring about it. All of these people watching out, night and day!
Yeah, Gerry, the new Neighborhood Walkers are out in force in all the crime-free parts of the Benefits District. When asked when they'd get around to walking Harwood & Greemount, the Vista organizer indicated that volunteers are not encouraged to venture into the "Bad Part of the neighborhood".
O.K., so it's about providing security services only where they are not needed? Gotcha.
Baltimore B. Again.
The area covered by the Benefits District is a tough one. Some parts of Greenmount might be ok during the day. However, the Edna McAbier case highlighted the risk to citizens in the areas controlled by criminal element. It is foolhardy to expect citizens or even unarmed security to patrol these high-crime areas and have any measure of success.
After the manager of the Blockbuster next to the new Waverly Giant was killed (he was from the neighborhood), that store hung on for a little while more, but has been vacant now for many months.
That having been said, it is still good that the people are out and about in the Village. In my experience in working there a lot of street robberies and burglaries occur within a couple of blocks of 30th and Guilford.
But if CVCBD is going to leave Harwood & Greenmount uncovered, doesn't it owe the taxpayers there the service of calling the City on the carpet and demanding significantly enhanced police manpower there?
At present, the cozy relationship between Charles Village and the City serves to condone allowing the crime over here in exchange for keeping it away from the North Charles Villagers.
Thus, dumping a very different kind of sludge into poor, black communities.
If the City & State aren't willing to incarcerate these criminals, then it should force them to live according to a uniform distribution across neighborhoods, so that neighborhoods like mine don't get stuck with one in eleven criminals while Charles Village, a few blocks away, chases them this way.
Not very neighborly.
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