Where Are All the Chicago Police Scanner Phreaks?

One of the things I work on is the idea of Open Government Data. I spend a lot of time working with municipal governments to get them to publish more public data and in more accessible formats. I also see that there's a ton of great city bloggers and other neighborhood people writing about what's going on near them. Lots of them use public data as a basis for posts or investigations.

But I also see all sorts of public info that is way out in the ether, but underutilized. Police communications is an example. At Chicago Scanner, they have live, iTunes-style radio feeds of what police dispatchers and police are saying to each other right now, in the moment. You can hear, in classic Chicago accents-- exactly what the cops are working on right now. After about 10 minutes, you'll have a renewed appreciation for what these people go through to help us out, some pretty detailed info about random events all over the city, and some pretty good fodder for location-based posts.

Here's an example -- a police officer calling in an accident and providing fodder for personal injury lawyers, January 15, 2009 9:10 AM:

"4-car non-drivable on Foster over the Kennedy" (N Cicero Ave & W Foster Ave) and have CDOT get some salt -- there's a bunch of ice and that's "probably what caused the accident"

I'd love to see more people listening & transcribing...

UPDATE: lots of accidents on the overpasses. Here's another one, 9:27AM: 28 West Marquette Rd. -- an SUV "up on the pole" (in an accident).

5800 Ridge -- injured person in the nursing home, 9:29 AM.

Community concern, noise complaint, 1100 West Randolph, 9:41 AM.