Will Wilson

GoodTimes

The Ear

Tucked In

Autumn

Anxious? Or Alert?

Sleeping Red

Rolling Over

Work the Pillow

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

Dangling

Pile of Dog

Wet Dog Shake

Out of the Elements

Restless Night

Stop That Barking 10-11

An interesting story from NPR about the push to drop radio police codes in favor of plain English:

"In the case of a large-scale disaster, we all have to be able to go on the radio and talk to each other," says Mike Williams, assistant chief of the Chattanooga Police Department in Tennessee. His agency was on the forefront of the switch to plain talk a couple years ago, when officials realized that local agencies couldn't communicate during tornadoes and floods.

"You had 10 different radio systems, and everybody had different codes," Williams says. "It was a nightmare."

Coded police talk came about during the 1920s and '30s, when radio channels were scarce. Officers needed to get on and off the air quickly. They created what are called 10 codes, and then later signal codes. Police also thought the codes would keep things less public. But Williams says that even with different local versions, that's always been wishful thinking.

"The codes are no secret. They've been around for as long as I've been doing this, and the public pretty much knows," he says.

Of course, it is easier said than done:

"We always say tradition is the biggest roadblock to progress, and I think it's tradition in law enforcement," says Brandon Clabes, chief of the Midwest City Police Department. Instead of saying there's a 417, officers now just say there's a man with a gun inside the 7-Eleven store...[snip]

Some departments that still use the codes take it to the extreme. It's not uncommon to hear a dispatcher say a caller is complaining about a barking 10-11.