Mayor Lori Lightfoot has revealed the City of Chicago’s plan to block live transmissions of Chicago Police Department scanners – restricting access to transmissions that have always been available to the public and to the news media. We are a coalition of Chicago-area news organizations concerned with this planned encryption and are sharing our concerns to raise awareness about how the City’s plan will impact our ability to provide timely, accurate and potentially life-saving news to you.
Our newsrooms monitor emergency scanner traffic to report everything from traffic congestion to developing threats to public safety.
As news unfolded about the July 4th shooting in Highland Park, the media and the public turned to police scanners and reporting informed by police scanners to take cover, to stay safe, to locate the missing. A coalition member was able to report on a shooting last month in Chicago’s River North neighborhood as the perpetrators remained at large, alerting the public of this imminent danger.
AC