News Piece Scolding Not to Listen to Police Scanner, Reason to Listen to Police Scanner

07/06/2026

The Actual Recording

Recording from early morning of July 5, 2026 - BPD Channel 3 (C and E District Channel)

IMPORTANT: The Cheektowaga Facebook Page did incorrectly interpret and convey the type of diversion called out by BPD as pertaining to gunshot victims, in its first banner post. The initial banner post by the Cheektowaga Scanner page did in fact convey, incorrectly, whether declared by ECMC or the BPD, that gunshot victims were being diverted. The actual "diversion", as it would be established in user commentary, was for what BPD refers to as "22.09" -- cases which pertain to things like intoxicated individuals and other mental health matters.

It is important to clarify and acknowledge this, as well as to acknowledge that Cheektowaga Scanner has accepted responsibility for its mistake. However, keep in mind the broader editorial being made here at BuffScan with respect to the inappropriate scolding over people relying on police scanners for information, and the mainstream media's selfish play to keep exclusive access to that traffic, so that it can make such mistakes all by itself. ;)

Shots Fired at Facebook Police Scanning Pages

At a time when New York Senate Bill S10079 and Assembly Bill A11199A are one or two inches short of being signed into law, you can bet as controversy swirls over the wording of each, there are going to be those eager to demonstrate why the public cannot be trusted with access to public safety radio traffic and only the ordained mainstream media can.

As it happens, such an example is being attempted by BTPM NPR in their story "ECMC says it did not divert patients during Fourth of July shootings".

What Happened?

The Cheektowaga Scanner Facebook Page apparently created a post, AI banner and all, pointing out that due to the high number of shooting victims on the morning of July 5, "22.09s" were being diverted elsewhere from ECMC.

To be sure, the vernacular of "diversion" and the general overall construction of the post sure do come off as somehow impressing that ECMS may itself have made the decision if you are just skimming. But the devil is in the nuanced wording -- which in the case of the posting, is glaring back at anyone looking at it.

The banner reads that the diversion was actually a Buffalo Police advisory, and yes, they gave exactly that. You can hear the recording yourself above. In it, an exasperated Buffalo Police officer asks dispatch to call out over all other BPD channels to take "22.09" patients (apparently a reference to those intoxicated and the like) anywhere besides ECMC, to which the dispatch agrees to do.

Cheektowaga Scanner, in its usual flamboyant way, conveyed this dutifully with its posting. Keep in mind none of the chaos was being covered by the mainstream media yet, let alone the hint of a packed ECMC emergency room filled with gunshot victims. Only the police scanner traffic was heroically keeping citizens in the know.

For the rest of this post, I will merely regurgitate what I posted on the BuffScan Facebook Page.

Here it is:

The reporting in this BTPM piece is slightly misleading. The Facebook scanner page, Cheektowaga Scanner, never said ECMC announced a diversion.

Further, this report is also inaccurate because it approaches ECMC for a clarification, but ECMC isn't the correct party to offer that clarification in this case.

What actually did happen was that a BPD officer asked dispatch to put a call out to all other BPD channels that any other police units with gunshot victims (correction: 22.09 cases) be taken elsewhere, to which BPD dispatch agreed to do.

The post by Cheektowaga Scanner (Cheektowaga Scanner) explicitly says that this diversion was a Buffalo Police call, not ECMC's. The fact is, yes, BPD, going by police scanner traffic, did in fact call for a diversion. The audio recording establishes this as pure fact.

Although it would seem like the natural thing to do so, asking ECMC to clarify this matter was arbitrary -- it is the Buffalo Police that should be asked about the call.

To be fair, it's possible that the call out to the rest of the other cars was never made (in fact, one assumes only ECMC officials can actually make such a determination and maybe they figured that out internally at some point), but it is unfair to scold people for listening to the police scanner or try to make the case that doing so is dangerous, while using a distorted example.

People should listen to police scanners, Facebook scanner pages, and social media in general, with discriminating mindsets. Exactly as they should when listening to mainstream media sources.

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  By BuffScan for BuffScan.

A11199A controversy S10079

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The Facebook Scanner Pages Did it Better

07/05/2026

This is a post to the Buffalo subreddit (r/Buffalo) I just made.

Corporate media is advocating tuning out regular people, but listening to Buffalo last night shows why they are being dangerously selfish

There are bills in New York State legislation pending delivery and possible signature by the governor that will guarantee access to encrypted police radio traffic (not currently a problem in Buffalo for most agencies, but since it is a trend, will be whenever the radio system upgrades) by what the bills attempt to define as professional newsgatherers. Without such a bill, public safety agencies would likely encrypt their radio traffic 100 percent (not just actually sensitive channels). Big media is making a play to preserve *their* access and by extension save their diminishing relevance in life-and-death struggle against your friendly neighborhood Facebook page or whatever.

But -- look at last night. The city was in absolute chaos. An as-of-yet innumerable number of shootings and related chaos that these Facebook scanner news and information pages like Cheektowaga Scanner, Amherst Scanner, Buffalo 716 Street News, etc. all kept citizens updated in real-time and with far more coverage than the so-called professional newsgatherers as the New York State government would describe them, did.

I am using last night as part of the campaign to raise everyone's awareness about these bills, A11199A and S10079 and refute their premise. I for one am not even saying don't let them pass because I also happen to believe that anyone having access to encrypted radio traffic is better than no-one, but the fight now or later needs to be to keep this access PUBLIC, period. As it is these bills are selfishly written by big for-profit media on the lie that "big media does it better with your best interest at heart", when, last night we see by the dedication and spread of random people on the ground like you and me, did it BETTER.

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  By BuffScan for BuffScan.

A11199A regurgitation S10079

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The MSM Media's Transparent 'El Lector' Act

07/01/2026

Here we are again.

There are two bills, A11199A and S10079, open in New York State now designed to concentrate access to encrypted public safety radio transmissions to whomever the state designates as legitimate newsgatherers. They are a re-worked A3516 which was vetoed by Governor Kathy Hochul last December.

The travesty of these and of previous efforts in New York State is how narrow and blatant they are at protecting the principle of information commodification to the direct benefit of just a few corporations involved in the framework of profit-driven news gathering.

Motions to preserve a free view into a benevolent public safety apparatus should absolutely exist; there is a legit effort to do something about keeping public safety operations in the clear, and a legit hope of and value to codifying through law said access.

But, these and the previous bills, completely fuck it up.

Guaranteed transparency should be fought for the public. Not just a few well-resourced wealthy mainstream media corporations so aware of the stakes with respect to their own survival against social media, they can't even bring themselves to posture as advocates for a truly free press, as anyone would expect them to. If you were hoping for some James Stewart-esqe personality within the TEGNA, Sinclair, or FOX corporations to emerge on the floor of a congress, horse-shoed by corrupt legislative fat cats who sneer and chuckle among each other while he pleads in a croaking tired voice for the trust in each and every American to listen in on police calls -- you can forget it.

Corporate media does not believe in a free press; it believes in a shaped press with "free press characteristics." Ones you can still talk about under 4th of July fireworks but favor their side of the ensuing lopsided circle.

Establishing the free press distinction between themselves and anyone else without the bucks to afford liability insurance, which is someone's clever "moo hah hah" in coming up with this as a defining criteria for "newsgatherer" in these bills, is corporate media's play to assume the role of a sole trusted "El Lector" who reads the daily news to a half dozen rows of factory workers who are expected to keep their heads down and producing.

Extraordinary sanctimonious principles do not make for-profit media exceptional. Money does. And money is exactly what NY State Assembly Bill A11199A and Senate Bill S10079 are all about. Advocating for the siloing of information will make their insights and access, their newsgathering farming, both special and super enriching.

The thousands of personal freelance newsgatherers? The thousands of Facebook community and scanner pages likely many of you and readers rely on more today (as a fact, not hypothesis) - Well guess what: Fuck'em.

Oh sure: All these forms of newsgatherers certainly have a right to exist and to emote, but once a bill like those under consideration pass on to law, only in the shadow of mainstream media's voice. Mainstream media will be the only ones with the story, acquired cheaply, first.

Ultimately BuffScan does not oppose a signing of these bills into law; it just does not support it. To outright oppose after all means not supporting a chink at the armor of public safety push-to-talk radio encryption, which would be the only good thing about it. BuffScan's suspicion is, as it mentioned elsewhere in its channels, that the logistics of providing selective access will prove so burdensome and costly, most public safety agencies will at the end of the day keep relevant push-to-talk traffic public as a way to meet compliance. In such a case, the outright selfishness of corporate media's play here could be overlooked if not laughably ironic.

Or put another way, if any law should be signed it should be one that dismisses the concept of a gold mine's stake in the ethereal passing of valuable airwave chatter, and fairly acknowledges the reality that, tasteful or not, everyone is a "newsgatherer" contributing to a level hive of the everyday narrative.

Police tape. Yes, simple flimsy police tape, seems like an incredibly cheap way to regulate against the dreaded exaggerated idea of the random un-washed masses showing up to critical incident events based on some overheard police call, should that be anyone's genuine concern. Police tape has been super effective for decades upon decades. About as much time as has been the open air broadcasting and access to public safety radio that people used to routinely tune into on their AM home radio sets.

Press organizations should they want to be involved, and legislators, should pursue a law that simply keeps certain push-to-talk public safety communication truly and absolutely public.

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  By BuffScan for BuffScan.

A11199A A3516 S10079

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