It became easier than ever before to listen to local law enforcement and EMS frequencies when the app “5-0 Radio” was created and made available to the masses, and now there’s even a Facebook page – The Ohio Valley Underground – that publishes those snippet reports along with the additional information shared on-air by first responders and right-and-wrong posters.
Listening to police scanners has been an American pastime since the technology was created, that’s because a listener can hear about the “dark side” of any town on the dial. Social media has greatly grown the population, and on the “Underground” page people help by adding pertinent information and correcting the inaccurate reports. People like it; it’s member list has swelled to 17,000 in less than a year.
Those who listen – or read – know when fires are in progress, when someone is calling for medical help, or when a business has been robbed. We know where power outages are affecting residents, when accidents close interstates, when a neighbor is concerned about a husband-wife fight next door, and when weather wreaks havoc.
Things like that. The “normal-not-so-normal” reports. Issues that have been around since we started paying attention. The expected.
But we also read about rashes of “bad-batch” overdoses and OD deaths, altercations breaking out in Wheeling’s exempted homeless camp, and about confrontations that have scared people away from visiting the public library and utilizing the Heritage Trails.
That’s the sad stuff, and we’ve also heard fist fights turn into gun fights, traffic stops turn into drug busts, and arguments turning into altercations, and this is happening in every neighborhood at a time when every law enforcement agencies in the valley is experiencing all-time lows in interest and recruiting month after month.
That’s where the residents – and their cellphones – could come into play, and if they do call it can only help an overworked police department that may be short on officers but determined to protect and serve.
