On rare occasions, I have the patience to lock in the Bearcat on one LAPD frequency. Usually, I choose to avoid the busiest areas, like Southeast, Rampart, 77th or Van Nuys. I can't really handle the steady slew of Domestics, Code 30 Ringers, or the dozens of "ID check by name"'s foisted onto gangsters who wander around the hood without any ID.
I tend to like listening to Wilshire (my home division), Hollywood (for the sheer absurdity of the calls), Pacific (close to the beach and includes LAX) or West L.A. (rich neighborhoods produce interesting calls). It's also easier to hear the units when they switch to simplex, because they're geographically close to my house.
On a recent Sunday night, I locked into Wilshire and spent a leisurely evening being entertained by the various happenings in my home district. A few traffic stops here, a "critical missing" there, and a brand new Jeep Commander stolen directly off the dealership lot at closing time by two white dudes. That call led to an amusing, if pained, exchange from the copper on 7Adam22 who called up an Airship on the Tac channel to advise him to BOLO for the white Jeep. He informed the amused observer on the helo that the stolen Jeep had no Lojack, but did sport bright orange paper plates from the dealership, not seeming to consider that the perps could easily remove those.
The Jeep was boosted by two white guys in their mid-to-late 30s (not a common descriptor for GTA suspects in that neighborhood) who took the vehicle with the keys still in it as the dealership employees were moving cars around before closing for the night. I figured the Jeep was a goner, but an hour and half later, an enterprising sergeant, patrolling on his own, apparently located the vehicle--and at least one suspect--about four blocks from where it had been stolen. About six A-cars blasted to the scene Code 3, but it was an uneventful recovery.
And I realized as I shut the scanner off when I went to bed that L.A. can at times--on a quiet Sunday night--boast a police department (and scanner traffic) that resembles that of any small town in America. Pretty cool.
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3 comments:
First, welcome back!! I'm sure tones of people missed reading this! Don't leave that long again!
Second, have to agree on the "small town" feel you can get from listening to LAPD. I remember thinking that on the day Michael Jackson died, I was listening to West LA. Obviously the death caught them as surprise and the ensuing mayham at UCLA. I remember hearing the seargant calling for every available unit to come to the Bel Air area (to both patrol the house and set up crowd control at UCLA) well they needed more units than there were physically available and those that monitor LAPD know you don't ever ask an outside division for help unless life and death. So long story short they find some officer at the station and keep asking him to look around the station for other officers who may be arriving for watch but not clocked in yet. The conversation would get so downhome, "are you sure you looked around the station? in the lockeroom? bathroom? What about in parking lot for any additional officers" the LAPD dispatch has to repeat it "8L90 per 8L30 did you look in the bathroom,, lockeroom and parking lot for additional officers?" 8L90:"yeah, in hallway not looking for additional". LOL. Needless to say it did seem pretty down home country. Also indeed a few minutes later the decision was made to go on a city wide tactical alert, that killed me, MJ dies and LAPD goes on tactical alert.
Thanks, Discoman. Good to be back. That's an amusing, and unsurprising, story about the LAPD and MJ. Celebrities always = chaos.
The city wide tac alert for MJ is pretty amusing...though I guess if it were any person dying who got a tac alert, it WOULD be him. Even the President probably wouldn't get that many people rushing the area...
As far as the paper plates thing, that was smart of the officer to include in the description. Probably without even thinking both people communicating knew that that meant to look for either the paper plate or no plates (yes they could put on some fake plates, but that rarely happens after stealing cars from the lot). So yeah, they were a few steps ahead of ya ;)
-A
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