Thousands of People Are Monitoring Police Scanners During the George Floyd Protests

Thousands of People Are Monitoring Police Scanners During the George Floyd Protests

4 years ago
Anonymous $-9GJQVHNr8

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkybn8/police-radio-scanner-apps-george-floyd-protests

The number of users of an app which lets people listen in to police radio broadcasts across the country is nearly doubling everyday during the protests, according to its developer. As of Monday morning, '5-0 Radio' had skyrocketed above apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to the most popular paid app, and the second most popular free app on the Apple App Store, according to Apple's own rankings. Other similar apps have also jumped in popularity.

The news gives some indication to the scale of the protests and the attention they are drawing. The protests started last week when a white police officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man. One person at the protests told Motherboard that their friends have, in some cases, been listening to the scanners and giving them information about planned police actions so they can protect themselves.