Street Talk: When good scanner calls go bad

Over the police scanner, it sounded like the real thing.

Four shots had been fired near an Auburn hotel, according to the caller, and at least one person had been struck.

The man who reported the shooting further advised police that he was locked in the trunk of a Buick. He was thumping around and making all sorts of noise, he told them, in hopes of summoning help.

Police began frantically searching for a Buick with a lot of thumping going on in the rear end. Other officers, meanwhile, were prowling around the hotel in search of a gunman and possibly more victims.

By then, I had already pulled my pants on and I was hopping around on one foot, searching for a missing boot. When bullets are flying and men are trapped in trunks, my friend, I want to be there and I’d like to be at least partially dressed for it.

This was the big one, all right. And considering it was nearing 2 a.m. I might even get an exclusive.

I was just heading out the door when things started to turn hinkey.

Over the scanner, a calm dispatcher relayed the latest. The caller reported that he had escaped from the trunk and was now running for safety. A police officer reported there was still no sign of that Buick and there was definitely nobody running for safety.

Freezing cold, shivering behind the wheel of my car, I paused at the end of the driveway. There was something hinkey about this, all right. And it was getting hinkier by the minute.

The scanner crackled with the latest development: more shots had been fired, according to that caller! Gunfire was ripping through the night and only God knew how many people had fallen in the spray of bullets.

Just one problem: by then, the hotel parking lot was absolutely crawling with cops and not one of them had heard any gunshots. Neither did nearby witnesses, nor did the crows perched on the power lines above.

I was still stuck there at the end of the driveway, indecisive. What was this game? Gunshots that nobody could hear? Men with bullet wounds that didn’t exist? And what of that poor soul trapped in the cold trunk of a Buick nobody could find?

The scanner snapped me out of this reverie. The caller, the dispatcher patiently advised, was now amending his story. While he was running from the Buick that had previously entombed him, he had spotted a sign for Motel 6, which is two miles away and in Lewiston. Could it be that this was all a matter of a misidentified hotel and that all the big action was really happening on the other side of the river?

Lewiston police wondered this, too, as they scrambled into action. Not one, not two, but three officers went speeding off toward the Ramada Inn and the Motel 6 just down the road. Still in my driveway, I clung to faint hope that the big story was still alive. Maybe there HAD been a volley of gunfire at a popular hotel. Maybe there HAD been a guy trapped in the trunk of a Buick like some bit player in an obscure Tarantino film. Maybe I WASN’T just an idiot, sitting here at the end of my driveway, unsure of which city beheld my Pulitzer.

I think the police dispatcher began to suspect early on, though she continued to dutifully pass along information as it came her way. When she reported that the calls had been traced to an out-of-service number, she reported it in a neutral, even tone, with no indication at all that she was beginning to feel we had all been punked.

When the first Lewiston cops arrived at the Ramada and Motel 6, they reported finding no action at all. No terror stricken crowds ducking gunfire. No glass windows dotted with bullet holes, no bodies thumping around in car trunks.

The voices over the scanner dropped several octaves, the drama having been sucked out of them. All incoming police officers were told to slow it down. In Auburn, police abandoned the Hilton after a final look around.

“I think,” one officer said bitterly over the police scanner, “that someone is playing games with us.”

Seriously, I put on pants for this?

All that heart-pounding, Pulitzer-dreaming action had amounted to no more than a prank phone call, albeit an elaborate one. I mean, there’s nothing novel about reporting gunfire, but that man trapped in a car trunk? That’s definitely worth putting on pants and at least one boot.

Of course, my role in all this is trivial when one considers the big picture: how many victims of legitimate crimes were left waiting because so many police and rescue crews had been diverted to this sham? How many lives were put in peril as all those rescuers went racing down icy roads and cops at the scene drew their weapons on uncertainty?

This caller should stick to asking people if their refrigerators are running because as pranks go, this one runs deep into criminal territory.

Scanner traffic is notoriously unreliable, even when the people who frantically dial 911 are doing their best to provide accurate information. Add to that a bold prankster working out of a phone booth on a cold dark street? Hooooey! This one deranged fellow, with just a couple coins for the phone, managed to get a dozen police officers in two cities jumping, along with one simple-minded reporter who became so galvanized by the wildness of it, he couldn’t even make it out of his own driveway.

And hey, waddaya know? Now that I’m back inside where it’s warm and bright, I can see that these are definitely not my pants.