Worth getting an APCO-25 scanner?

[K4DHR]

I don't know how much good monitoring normal traiffic is going to do any criminal.

Criminal commits crime.
Criminal runs.

Then what?
He listens to the call come out after he is miles away? For what purpose?

Now obviously, drug dealers would love to have full access to the coms of the local detectives, and the guy barricaded in his home holding hostages would probably wish he could listen in to tactical ops, and I can think of other scenarios like this. But normal traffic?

I don't know how much use any of it would be to most criminals.

Most thugs now are dopers anyway, and would probably have long ago sold anything of value for dope. If they do have several scanners in their car, they are probably stolen, and they wouldn't have the knowledge or experience to operate them efficiently.

I know FOR A FACT though, that scanners have been used many times by honest citizens to help cops. I have done so myself as a matter of fact, helping to catch a pretty bad guy.

Preaching to the choir here. That's just what I was told. My guess is that they thought that the crooks were listening to see if cops were nearby before breaking into places, which is about as useful as trying to use a scanner to avoid a speedtrap.

 

[Airdorn]

How about the Hollywood-esque situation where said criminal is sneaking around and listening to the scanner to see if he'd been discovered by silent alarms?

 

[N8IAA]

How about the Hollywood-esque situation where said criminal is sneaking around and listening to the scanner to see if he'd been discovered by silent alarms?

You said it----Hollywood. What perp is going to stick around to hear if he tripped an alarm??? Have you ever seen the show It Takes a Thief? In and out in minutes. In broad daylight.
Gone

 

[af5rn]

I hate to do this but...

http://www.odmp.org/officer/15488-police-officer-aubrey-wright-hawkins

The animals that ambushed and massacred him had scanners and knew he was coming.

 

[n2mdk]

I hate to do this but...

http://www.odmp.org/officer/15488-police-officer-aubrey-wright-hawkins

The animals that ambushed and massacred him had scanners and knew he was coming.

Link doesn't work
OK now it is

 

[Airdorn]

I hate to do this but...

http://www.odmp.org/officer/15488-police-officer-aubrey-wright-hawkins

The animals that ambushed and massacred him had scanners and knew he was coming.

I'm sorry, but in the larger picture, is the scanners really relevant? I mean, they were escaped felons who were tying people up and robbing the business. They had to know the cops were going to be coming.

At that point, I can't believe the scanners were really that much of a factor, if any at all.

 

[af5rn]

I agree. Probably not. They had lookouts out front anyhow. But they were better able to coordinate the ambush by having advanced warning. I'm certainly not one to argue in favour of encryption or anything. Just being personally familiar with the case, I had to point it out as at least one instance of criminals using scanners to their advantage.