Scannerland

By Ethan Smith - A little off the top

There are hundreds of you out there — perhaps thousands — living in your own little world, a world you share anonymously with me and many other county residents, and of course, local law enforcement.

Welcome to Scannerland.

For those of you who don't live in this world, Scannerland is the term local law enforcement, 911 dispatchers and even Scannerland residents themselves use to refer to the land "out there."

It is a land that isn't tangible — you can't hold it, touch it or see it. But it's very much there.

It's the land made up of airwaves, broadcasting every little traffic stop, every little neighborly dispute, every little barking dog complaint, and yes, much, much more.

Montana is one of several states where owning a police scanner isn't against the law, and hundreds of county residents do the dishes, watch TV or just chat with family with the police scanner running in the background, all day every day.

I live in Scannerland part-time, in that we have a scanner on in the newsroom, but other than that, I don't feel the need to listen to every mundane phone call that comes through Tribal and county dispatch when I go home at night.

While about five percent of the calls can be pretty juicy, the fact of the matter is, hearing that your neighbor was pulled over for speeding is as appealing to residents of Scannerland as the more serious calls deputies and officers respond to.

Scannerland holds a lot of appeal for certain people. Despite the fact that dispatchers don't relay super-sensitive information over the radio, and law enforcement personnel use 10-codes ("10-4" means everything is OK, for example), it's fairly easy to pick up on whatever is happening that Tribal, Polson, Ronan, and Mission police officers and county deputies have to deal with.

Neighbors not getting along? Scannerland has the situation. Guy down the street having chest pains? Scannerland is there for you. A woman reporting a suspicious looking man watching children at the local school playground? Scannerland has the scoop.

And in some respects, that's the appeal of Scannerland, if there is one. It has all the dirt that's not fit to print. The fact of the matter is, 95 percent of what people hear on the scanner is stuff for good gossip, but frankly doesn't amount to anything too serious, fortunately for local law enforcement.

And therein lies the appeal. It's the gossipy stuff that keeps them coming back to Scannerland, because let's face it, the really serious stuff — the high speed chases, a robbery, a domestic in progress that might involve a gun — make up only a fraction of the law enforcement calls taken on any given month.

If that were the only reason to listen, the population of Scannerland would be much lower.

The reality of Scannerland is that many residents enjoy listening to other people's problems. They find it entertaining.

That, and the fact that despite dispatchers' and officers' efforts to maintain some privacy and dignity for the people involved, you will hear names being broadcast over the radio.

Oh, so-and-so is being pulled over for speeding right now. Naughty them. Did you hear that?

There's a fight at so-and-so's residence. I knew they weren't getting along …

Even though we are loathe to admit it publicly, we all slow down to take a look when we are driving by an accident.

Likewise, when we pass a vehicle that has been pulled over, we take a quick glance at the driver to see if we recognize them.

Admit it. You do it. I do it. We all do it.

And that's why Scannerland is so heavily populated. For some folks, just taking a glance at the driver isn't enough.

They want to know just how many DUIs and no-insurance convictions he's had in the past five years, and whether the driver has a suspended license — all of which you'll hear over the scanner.

Scannerland will tell you all of that, and more. I find it amusing that so many people have a need to listen to it all the time, but in some respects, I can see the appeal.

Law enforcement's relationship with Scannerland residents is an interesting one. Officers and deputies are aware that people are listening to their conversations over the radio, and they restrict a lot of their dialogue as a result, especially the really personal stuff. However, interesting tidbits do slip through occasionally, despite their best efforts, which also explains the appeal of Scannerland.

Scannerland residents actually play a minor role in local law enforcement. They have been known to call dispatchers and provide them with helpful information, such as the fact that a suspect being sought in a chase just ran into the red brick house down the street, or that a vehicle matching the description of the suspect's rig just drove down XYZ Lane near their house.

They call while a chase is in progress because they are literally listening to it while it's happening, and just saw the vehicle in question pull into the driveway down the street.

This was the case during the August, 2005 robbery of the Pablo bank, when dispatchers received several tips from residents of Scannerland who called to say that a green passenger car matching the description of the getaway vehicle was seen driving down certain roads.

Sometimes that information backfires, as it did occasionally that day when deputies and Tribal officers were sent on a few wild goose chases. A green car turned out to really be light blue, for example, or a green car filled with suspicious-looking people turned out to be a green car filled with a mom and two kids on their way home from school.

Residents of Scannerland, like the general population, are not immune to color blindness, poor vision, or adrenaline rushes that cause little things to be blown out of proportion.

If there's one benefit to Scannerland, other than the occasional tip that helps law enforcement, it's that the people who inhabit Scannerland learn firsthand just how many calls local law enforcement respond to on any given day.

Listen to a scanner for 48 hours and you will learn just how many stupid, mundane things officers and deputies have to deal with everyday that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in man-hours and resources dealing with the simple fact that many people just can't work out minor disagreements in a mature and orderly manner.

There is one segment of Scannerland that really isn't in it for the gossip or background chatter though. It's the spouses and other family members of the officers and deputies out there. They are some of the most avid listeners simply out of concern for their loved ones' well-being.

That doesn't always sit well with some in law enforcement, who are painfully aware that if anything happened to them in the line of duty, having a spouse back at the house listening to it on the radio won't do much to help the situation.

Many of them have confided to me that they've simply asked their wife or mother to stop listening, if only for their family member's peace of mind.

"I told my wife that if something happens to me, they (other officers) are just going to come to the door and tell her, so there's no point in listening all day and worrying," one officer told me.

In other words, worrying all day about every traffic stop they're on isn't going to change the outcome of a potential catastrophe. It just means a spouse is sitting at home worrying all day.

For the other 99 percent of Scannerland, it's not about an officer's well-being. It's about listening to all the headaches officers and deputies have to deal with on any given day — neighbors arguing over a fence line, the one dog that continues to keep an entire city block up at night with its barking, an "out-of-control" teenager — you name it, they have to deal with it.

Ask anyone in Scannerland confidentially why they listen, and many of them will admit it — they like the "gossip" aspect of it.

It's the same reason many of you turn to our courts section each week. (Why we print the courts section is good fodder for another column, and is a reader Frequently Asked Question, and I have to admit that one of the reasons is reader interest — the "gossip" aspect — as much as that annoys me to acknowledge. People simply like to read about other people getting in trouble, or that so-and-so got a speeding ticket. There are some more legitimate reasons to publish the courts section each week, which I will address in that column in the near future.)

Sometimes scanner traffic is interesting. Occasionally it's humorous, and sometimes tragic. But for the hundreds of people who tune in everyday, it also represents an escape from their normal (presumably law-abiding), everyday life.

On some level, I think residents of Scannerland get some smug satisfaction knowing that whatever headaches are happening to them on that day, they didn't find a bag of pot in their kid's room, their neighbor isn't shooting off fireworks at midnight again, or their 15-year-old daughter isn't dating a 24-year-old loser.

The fact of the matter is, many people simply like to listen to other people's troubles, and since that's been human nature since the dawn of time, Scannerland will always have a healthy population.

Long live Scannerland.