Today wraps up my four weeks of working the 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. photo shift. I’ve learned a lot in the past four weeks. I’ve discovered new coffee shops, made friends with police officers and gotten to know the streets of St. Louis and East St. Louis better.

The shift has an emphasis on news. Some mornings, I cruise while listening to the police and fire scanners that we have installed in our company cars. Many times the calls on the scanners lead me to news situations, such as the one photographed here. I first heard a call saying that traffic lights were out at Hampton and Fyler. Then I heard they were out at Watson and Fyler. After hearing “Fyler” several more times over the airwaves, I headed that way to find a recycling truck had knocked out power to the area. That makes a better picture than a traffic light not working!

After a week of intense scanner traffic monitoring, I also had a few chuckles. Though most of what I hear is business and serious dispatching, the off-the-wall comments keep me awake. I decided to ask others in the photo and news departments at the P-D to share their memorable scanner moments. Here are a few:

One day I was kind of bored sitting in the photo room. Then heard a call on the scanner that said something like, “We have a report of two elephants in Emma Thomas’ back yard.” I was instantly like, what?? I waited for them to repeat the call and sure enough, two elephants. I looked on the map and seeing this particular address was fairly far away I decided to call central dispatch and see what was up. The woman I talked to assured me that there were mostly likely no elephants…Ms. Thomas calls at least once a week. She’s… well… not all there.

Heard every car in town (4 or 5 in small city) answer they they would respond as backup to the car sent to report of couple having sex in a yard.

Heard an excited officer with radio in one hand and apparently gun in the other ordering someone to the ground in words not ordinarily broadcast. (Think he was gripping the radio tightly enough to squeeze the transmit button.)

About 15-years-ago, I was a photographer at a small local paper in Virginia and heard on the scanner of a car accident nearby. It was a small paper and we covered any spot news, big or small. As I got closer, I see the fire department already on the scene. It turns out it was my mom who had gotten involved in a car crash. It was nothing serious, but still scary to see someone you know.

A call came out at night about suspicious activity in a truck parked in a parking lot. Caller believed it was a trucker soliciting sex from a prostitute named “purple passion.”

Once heard a patrolman responding to a traffic crash report back that he couldn’t find it. At the end of his transmission was a yell and the sound of an impact. (He found it after all, just past the crest of a hill.)

I was once sitting in the photo area at The Charleston Gazette in Charleston, WV, when I heard a call about a women stuck in an escalator at Sears. Another staff photographer and I had a little chuckle about it when my cell phone rang. It was my mother calling to tell me that my grandmother was stuck in the escalator at Sears. She had a few scrapes and bruises but luckily she was ok.

Not all of the memorable moments are funny ones. Two of the staff had the news hit close to home. Luckily, the situations weren’t severe. My favorite scanner call while on the early shift was about an officer who locked his keys in his patrol car. The exchange went something like this:

“Keys locked in the car. Need backup.”

“(BIG LAUGH) Only you…on my way.”

“Don’t bother calling. My phone is also locked in the car.”

“(BIG LAUGH).”

I couldn’t help but also laugh. Besides, it made me feel better about myself. I had locked myself out of the house a few days prior. In the end, we’re all human - journalist, police and victim alike.

Read photographer Emily Rasinski’s take on the morning shift.