Thursday, March 25, 2010

A Scanner Darkly


Yes, you can actually listen to the City of Flint police and fire department scanners online. Go here. Even though the fire department responded to seven calls last night, it's not exactly riviting. But I could only listen for about 30 seconds because it made me feel like I was in a Richard Linklater movie.





2 comments:

  1. I used to sit with my grandparents in their semi-fortressed house and listen to the police scanner that stayed on inside their house 24/7. On a good day I would get a piece of Sanders Easter Bunny cake or a piece of Mother's bread; on a bad day an English muffin with raisins.

    The police scanner was very helpful on the day that a man was stabbed in their neighbor's house. We bought my own parents one for their retirement, but it didn't have the same cache in Flushing.

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  2. My in-inlaws had their scanner going 24/7. We would to Flint (College area) in the 80's to visit and I would get the creeps (to say the least) every time the scanner would go off. It did not make for pleasant dreams. They would reassure me that nothing ever happened in this area. One time we heard that police officers were walking up the steps to the home of the murder victim killed in Beecher to notify the family. All of a sudden we heard a loud knocking at the house across the street. It was the police notifying the family..... Fortunately my in-laws moved shortly after that to the burbs!

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.