Last night I had a small scare. I was in bed winding down to go to sleep when I hear a report that could be a gunshot. Or a firecracker, or someone with a badly tuned engine, or maybe someone has a screen door with a really strong spring? Who knows? So I’m not unduly worried but I am now alert enough to not go to sleep. Five or ten minutes later I hear a siren. A police siren? I realize I don’t know for sure the sound of a squad car from an ambulance or a fire engine. And for that matter sound carries enough that I can hear police sirens twelve blocks away at night. Still, I’m wondering if maybe something’s going on. THEN I hear strange unaccounted for noises in the living room. :eek: Now I’m worried enough to open my lock box and make sure my gun has a round chambered. An investigation of the house reveals nothing amiss; the noises were probably our damn cats having one of their nocturnal cat parties.
I do wonder however if there was a report of a shot fired somewhere nearby last night. Not every incident makes the news, so I was wondering the best way to check on what’s going on in my neighborhood. Are police incident reports usually publically available?
Best bet is your local newspaper’s local news page. It’s not comprehensive, though; you could call the local police station with more specific questions.
Some cities’ police departments publish crime maps online with varying degrees of accuracy and searchability. You could see if yours is one of them; looks like it is, done on a weekly basis:
Yes, though YMMV depending on location (city, county, state, country, continent, planet, solar system, etc.).
it’s usually called the Public Information Computer. You can have them run police contacts by name or address (including address ranges to encompass an entire neighborhood) and it can be specified by date if you wish. Some departments you have to nudge a little bit to get this info. Others, like Milwaukee, have a specific office at police district headquarters that deal with this. It’s free unless you want a print out of the activity. Then it’s a nominal fee.
Companies like EveryBlock have built tools around public data to produce sites like this one, which are pretty detailed. Similar sites are available in many cities (EveryBlock does 15 others).
The data reporting is not real time, and you’re not going to get full-fledged police reports. You’re going to get a single entry like so: “Attempted theft from grocery store.” Also keep in mind you’re going to see something when a crime is recorded, and a lot of calls don’t generate a report.
Pkbites is right that you can visit your local preceinct and ask, but if you really want to know what’s going on in your neighborhood, get a scanner.
Police keep a thing called a “police blotter” which is a matter of public record. Sometimes it’s online but often you have to go in and look. I’ve never seen any information given out over the phone, but they tell you, you can come in and look it over.
Keep in mind the “gunshot” and the “siren” may not be related, therefore the police may have no record of it