WOW! A great radio weekend in Sacramento.

[FerretCon]

So I get home from work Friday the 23'rd around 4:30 PM and I plop on the couch. Within 30 minutes the neighborhood is blowing up with sirens and I run for the scanner. For the next 4 hours I'm treated to some SOB who shot a gal in the shoulder. Then he pops off a couple more rounds and proceeds to barricade himself in his apartment. Here comes SWAT and the apartment evacuation. They finally send in the robot only to find the 27 year old kid shot himself in the head.

I was surprised at how intense the situation was just listening to it. We were about two blocks away from the incident so to hear the response and see the officers flying by added to the intensity. The amount of details was incredible as well. They said the kid even picked up his spent shell casings after discharging the weapon in the complex. It was just intense. Then we turn on the news and there it is!

So Saturday comes and now my wife is listening to the scanner. (I've turned her in to a radio junkie now as well.) From the other room I could tell the radio was blowing up and I asker her what was up. She replied, "I think they said it was on Sprite and University and a Hispanic man jumped in to someone's backyard with a gun." Sure enough she hit it on the head and we sat and listened to the drama unfold. Then on the 5 o'clock news there's the story. I was so proud of my wife to be able to stumble across the story and then follow it through to the end.

Then about an hour ago I'm sitting at work and there's another shooting up by AR Community College where the subject again has barricaded himself in his apartment. Now you would think I should be concerned about the crime but I'm like, "Hell Nah, this stuffs exciting!"

One thing that did catch my attention last Friday night was how much personal information the officers were giving out over the airwaves. The officers were sharing cell phone numbers, personal and county issue. As well as a few of their home address's. I thought to myself, "Maybe that's not such a good idea."

So just quick post to share my scanner weekend with you guys/gals. On the crime side of things I had plenty to listen to.

[bballjh]

I feel that same way! I feel like I should be concerned about the crime but whenever there is a vehicle/foot pursuit or shots fired on the scanner it's a "Oh hell yes!"

[Gbcue]

Maybe I should start to tune into to county stuff more often.

[hoser147]

Thats what we are all here for, that's exactly what makes this hobby so GREAT.

[scannerboy02]

Saturday was extremely crazy. I got a cup of coffee at work around 3pm and never got a chance to drink it. By the time I got back to it around midnight it was cold, not that I was having any trouble staying awake with everything that was going on that day anyway.

[gmclam]

LOL. None of this sounds new to me. It does not have to be a Friday or Saturday to hear lots of "excitement" in this area. Today was a bank robbery in Elk Grove, and they had to "clear" each and every house in a specific neighborhood to find their suspect.

Originally Posted by FerretCon

One thing that did catch my attention last Friday night was how much personal information the officers were giving out over the airwaves. The officers were sharing cell phone numbers, personal and county issue. As well as a few of their home address's. I thought to myself, "Maybe that's not such a good idea."

The people we are listening to do whatever they have to do to get the job done (and often put themselves in harms way). This is why I don't like to divuldge information that might put them in further jeopardy, or highlight information such as you have. This is the kind of 'fuel' many agencies use to go digital encrypted. So please just listen and don't point out things that might further jeopardize our hobby. I know we're all here to help each other and the community, but there are those who are not. We certainly do not want an Internet search to show someone the kind of things we're hearing like this.

[avtarsingh]

when i hear the encryption stuff it makes me think of jack booted thugs who have something to hide....

you already have MDTs... nextel.. cell phones..
how many more layers of secrecy do you need ? crooks are not known for being smart

i listen to sac so ch1 and chp gold almost exclusively... you will never be bored

from listening to them and their "open" broadcasts..

I can only say 1 thing - dont do crime in sac county - ssd are very well trained and rarely lose their (wo)man

i listen to Roseville PD and ...ahem...... not so much

placer so also seems to do a great job

sac pd has their moments but i must say ssd wins sac county

[FerretCon]

Originally Posted by avtarsingh

when i hear the encryption stuff it makes me think of jack booted thugs who have something to hide....

you already have MDTs... nextel.. cell phones..
how many more layers of secrecy do you need ? crooks are not known for being smart

My thoughts exactly. Crooks are not only known for NOT being smart but the last thing I think they'd do is take some officer's personal information and try to use it in some way. Their frame of thought is to run from the law, not get the home address's of the officer's and pay a visit. Again though I'm speaking of random thugs/crooks. Someone with some serious gang ties or in to organized crime may be interested. But again I find it hard to think that they just do it randomly. Most of the time when stuff like that goes down the officers themselves are involved in something shady.

And the officers themselves should know that there are people listening and maybe they should be careful what they put out there. From what I was hearing they weren't needing the numbers for the situation they were handling. They were hooking it up at Denny's after the stand off.

[cousinkix1953]

Originally Posted by FerretCon

My thoughts exactly. Crooks are not only known for NOT being smart but the last thing I think they'd do is take some officer's personal information and try to use it in some way. Their frame of thought is to run from the law, not get the home address's of the officer's and pay a visit. Again though I'm speaking of random thugs/crooks. Someone with some serious gang ties or in to organized crime may be interested. But again I find it hard to think that they just do it randomly. Most of the time when stuff like that goes down the officers themselves are involved in something shady.

And the officers themselves should know that there are people listening and maybe they should be careful what they put out there. From what I was hearing they weren't needing the numbers for the situation they were handling. They were hooking it up at Denny's after the stand off.

Some things shouldn't be mentioned on the radio, including home addresses and telephone numbers. Analog cell phones are history now; so even Nextel and AT&T provide some security.

I cam remember a vicious murder in Santa Cruz county many years ago. A psycho came home from work and literally butchered his wife in front of the kids. The homicide investigators gave out way too much personal information on their analog 800 mhz cellular phones. Many more people would have heard these details had they just blabbed on the regular radios...