Exigent Circumstances?

[wisco]

So last night the missus and I were sitting on our front porch listening to our police scanner. (We have one for entertainment, not illegitimate purposes ).

An officer obviously out driving around noticed a garage door open at about midnight. He radioed it in and said he was going to try to make contact with the owner.

At first I thought it odd that an officer would stop to check simply on an open garage door.

He then keyed up again and said nobody was answering, but while trying he also noticed the door inside the garage leading into the house was open. There was a vehicle in the garage so the officer radioed in the plates.

The plates came back registered to a person who lived some 30 miles from here. I found all the combined conditions suspicious and was sort of glad the officer did stop to check. But as far as I could tell, he didn't enter the house.

It turned about about 20 minutes later everything was fine - the owner came out, it was his kids car, etc...

Would the above scenario have been considered "exigent circumstance" (I apologize if my terminology is wrong) for the officer to have entered the house to investigate?

[DeltaV]

I do not think so unless there is more to the story. People leave their garage doors open all the time, as unsafe and stupid as it is. Exigent circumstances are conditions which lead the officer to believe someone would be in immediate danger. An open garage door doesn't fit the bill.

[wisco]

Thanks for your response. If there was more to the story I didn't hear it.

[Curt581]

Thanks for your response. If there was more to the story I didn't hear it.

That's because we don't broadcast every move we make over the radio.

Why not, you ask? People with police scanners.

[retdetsgt]

Why not, you ask? People with police scanners.

Orygun may have made them illegal, I dunno. Now that I think about it, I haven't seen one in stores in years. Radio Shack used to have a whole rack of them. Seems odd in that Oregon is so liberal and there was no fuss made about it if they were outlawed.....

Personally, I don't see the harm. We don't (or shouldn't) put anything on the air that would give away much and legitimate citizens can tell that we aren't sitting around eating donuts all day.

[Piggy]

I would think scanner's are becoming less useful. Everyone is using computers for the most part.

I do know that there is an IPOD application for police scanners. This is a great gift for that special convicted felon in your family:

Police Scanner - iPhone Apps, iPad apps & iPod touch App Reviews appsafari.com

[fatboyjim154]

I do know that there is an IPOD application for police scanners. This is a great gift for that special convicted felon in your family:

Ironic if they had stolen the iPhone too!

[greg72982]

I recently found a website where you can listen to one of the counties I work in....when they went to 800mhz years ago it put a real "kibash" on the scanner people, but my understanding now is that newer scanners are able to scan the 800 mhz band anyway.

[retdetsgt]

I recently found a website where you can listen to one of the counties I work in....when they went to 800mhz years ago it put a real "kibash" on the scanner people, but my understanding now is that newer scanners are able to scan the 800 mhz band anyway.

Ah, that may be why I don't see them. We went to 800 mhz in the mid 80's. I'm obviously not a radio geek.

[tcop733]

Simply put; exigent circumstances exist when there's no time to obtain a warrant.
Or, as DeltaV pointed out; an immediate suspected danger to the police or public exist, which an unsecured door to a residence, especially when you've got supporting facts such as an alarm or vehicle in the garage that doesn't come back to the registered home owner.
There's more exigent examples such as the destruction of evidence, but I won't bore you further.

[wisco]

I recently found a website where you can listen to one of the counties I work in....when they went to 800mhz years ago it put a real "kibash" on the scanner people, but my understanding now is that newer scanners are able to scan the 800 mhz band anyway.

There's one of those for my county too, but I generally just listen to the local stuff.

I have noticed that when the officers want a discussion to be private they get on cell phones. I completely understand how some things cannot be on the "open air".

RDS made a good point though. I have countless friends who think our local police don't do jack... whereas just the other night I listened to the response/chase/arrest of someone beating the hell out of his girlfriend.

The ending of that incident I found sort of humorous. After the suspect was arrested and transported one of the officers keyed up:

"Uhhh... 453 your 10-95 is calling my victim!?"
2 seconds later, 453: "Not anymore!!"

I had to chuckle.

Other than that I simply like to be aware of the goings on. I find it especially handy during the recent rash of storms we've had with the weather function and knowing where the lightning strikes were from emergency workers.