And members of the press are regularly in touch with officials to ensure that our reporting does not jeopardize police investigations or public safety. The City has never identified members of the press as the disruptors. The City claimed several reasons for the switch, including minimizing disruptions by unauthorized users who transmit fake calls, preventing criminals from monitoring police, and maintaining the safety of first responders. To put it simply, the media’s informative reporting on these events would never have been possible without real-time access to scanners.Įarlier this year, we learned that Chicago officials intended to prevent Chicago media from hearing these essential real-time scanner transmissions. The availability of scanner communications also directly led to the videorecording of the killing of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge police officers. ![]() An analysis of the scanner transmissions in the Uvalde, Texas school shooting revealed that law enforcement’s response was not as local authorities had first portrayed it. ![]() Real-time access to police scanners promotes transparency and accountability by law enforcement. All of this took place around dinnertime, as people returned home from work and children returned home from school. We were not able to alert the public as it was happening. This jeopardized the lives of everyone at that police department, everyone at that courthouse, everyone on that expressway.Īlso last week, we learned that a man armed with a rifle was walking down the street in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood. The City of Chicago prevented you from knowing about this dangerous incident by blocking all live scanner transmissions. You did not see, hear, or read about that incident as it was happening. The perpetrators fired more than 40 shots and escaped on an expressway. A coalition member was able to report on a shooting last month in Chicago’s River North neighborhood as the perpetrators remained at large, alerting the public of this imminent danger.Ī shooting took place at a courthouse and police district in Chicago last week in broad daylight. ![]() Our newsrooms monitor emergency scanner traffic to report everything from traffic congestion to developing threats to public safety.Īs news unfolded about the July 4th shooting in Highland Park, the media and the public turned to police scanners and reporting informed by police scanners to take cover, to stay safe, to locate the missing.
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