People who listen to police scanners: Informed or creepy busy bodies? Discuss.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Poll question: People who listen to police scanners: Informed or creepy busy bodies? Discuss.

[NJmaverick]

1. It's intneresting to know what's going on

There is nothing wrong with listening to a scanner.

[Chan790]

2. As long as it ends there...

the woman across the street from me used to be a volunteer EMT before she lost her certs for being perpetually-drunk. Now she listens to her scanner and goes to gawk if it sounds interesting. That's a bridge too far right there.

[madinmaryland]

3. That's my feeling. There's nothing wrong with listening to the scanner,

but going to see what happened is going to far. (Kind of weird, also)

[NJmaverick]

11. I can remember responding to a fatal accident

It happened outside some garden apartments at like 4 in the morning. There was one old lady that sat out on her balcony for hours, waiting for us to remove the bodies. She was dissappointed as we drapped sheets up to obstruct her and her neighbor's views. Some people just have a morbid curiosity.

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. Sometimes very very paranoid

And utterly terrorized by what they hear on the scanner every day.

[Shell Beau]

5. As if the world isn't bad enough. Why would one want to know

every little detail about what is going down? Seems creepy to me.

[PeaceNikki]

6. I think they're fun

I really wish I had one on Friday. I arrived home from work to see 9 squads from 3 different communities on my street. They had guns/rifles drawn, riot gear, K-9's, etc. The neighbor told me there had been a chase that landed on my street - with spike strips!! :o They pulled a guy out of a van and he fought some. After about 45 minutes of dogs in the car, they left.

This is NOT the kind of neighborhood where that kinda stuff happens. I still don't know what went down. Didn't make the news and nothing in the paper. But a scanner would have been nice that day!

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. That happened in my (rather nice) neighborhood a few years ago.

It was a marijuana bust of a 60-ish year old couple. It was horrible the way they handled these people.

[PeaceNikki]

9. Awww, jeez!!

:(

[ScreamingMeemie]

10. They blasted the door down and dragged them out in their pajamas.

Think really nice couple who kept a nice lawn, no lard parties, just relaxing with their own stuff. There were DEA people, dogs and guns. The neighborhood filed a complaint over the rather excessive use of force and the guns that were drawn and used on the door. The sick part of the whole thing is that they lost the house and their livelihood over it. Yes, marijuana is illegal, but destroy the lives of taxpaying citizens???

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. My aunt and uncle had one as did most of my family.

Country people tend to use them. Not to gawk but to hear the news in a way. I see nothing wrong with it.

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. Other: Bored out of their minds

I spent five and a half years in a newsroom with a scanner constantly going in the background. Ninety-nine percent of what comes over 'em is nothing, and unless you know the codes it's gobbledygook nothing.