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What Happened Near Me Last Night? How to Look It Up
Last night’s sirens left records — dispatch audio, CAD log entries, flight tracks, incident reports — and most of them are public. You can usually reconstruct what happened near you in about fifteen minutes, even when the news never mentions it (and for the overwhelming majority of calls, it never will). Here’s the lookup, in the order that pays off fastest.
Key takeaways Replay the radio: Broadcastify archives (premium) → your county’s feed at the exact time. Check the log: agency calls-for-service / CAD page → call type and block. Helicopter? Replay its track free on ADS-B Exchange. Later: crime maps (1–3+ days), blotter, records request. Next time, skip all of it: a recording scanner — $30 SDR + free GopherTrunk — archives every call itself; scroll to the timestamp and press play.
1. Replay the dispatch audio
If your county has a Broadcastify feed, Broadcastify archives it: a premium subscription (a few dollars a month) lets you pick the feed, the date, and a 30-minute window, and listen to the dispatch traffic from exactly when you heard the commotion. You’ll hear the call go out, the units arrive, and how it resolved — the complete story, in the responders’ own words.
Limits are the same as live feeds: no volunteer feed → no archive, and only the channels that feed relays.
2. Pull the call log
Agencies that publish calls-for-service / CAD pages usually keep the last
24 hours to 30 days browsable. Find yesterday’s date, scan for your street,
and you get the call type (“disturbance,” “structure fire,” “traffic
collision”) and block-level address — often enough to settle it. Search
"<county> sheriff calls for service" if you’ve never found yours.
3. Identify last night’s helicopter
ADS-B Exchange replays historical aircraft tracks free: set your location and last night’s time, and watch the orbit — tail number, operator, altitude, and exactly which blocks it circled. (Why ADS-B Exchange and not FlightRadar24, and what the patterns mean: helicopter circling my neighborhood.) Cross-reference the track’s timestamps with the scanner archive from step 1 and you usually have the entire incident.
4. The paper trail (slower, official)
- Crime maps — CityProtect, Community Crime Map, SpotCrime — plot incidents once reports post, typically 1–3+ days later. Calls that never generate a report never appear.
- Blotter / press releases on the agency site or local paper, for anything major.
- Public-records request for the incident report itself — every state allows it; expect fees, a wait, and redactions on open cases.
When each record appears (and how long it lasts)
| Record | Appears | Sticks around |
|---|---|---|
| Dispatch audio (live feed) | Real time | Gone unless archived |
| Broadcastify archive | Minutes behind live | Days (premium access) |
| Agency CAD / calls-for-service | Minutes to an hour | 24 hours–30 days, typically |
| State 511 incident (highway) | Minutes | Hours–days in the archive |
| Local news | Hours–next day | Major incidents only |
| Crime maps (CityProtect, SpotCrime…) | 1–3+ days | Months–years |
| Incident/crash report (records request) | Days–weeks | Permanent public record |
Read it bottom-up when something’s missing: a call absent from the crime map after a week probably never generated a report (medical, assist, unfounded alarm) — the CAD line and the audio are then the only records that ever existed, which is why the archive window matters.
Next time: have your own archive
Every step above depends on someone else having recorded, logged, or filed something. Scanner hobbyists skip the whole exercise: software like GopherTrunk with a ~$30 RTL-SDR monitors your local trunked system continuously and records every call with timestamps and talkgroup labels to a browser console. Sirens at 2:47 a.m.? Scroll to 2:47, press play, go back to bed. No subscription, no feed volunteer, no gaps — subject to the one universal limit, encryption, which no device can decode.
Start with what hardware you need, the budget breakdown, or a dedicated recording scanner if you’d rather skip the computer. And when it’s happening right now instead of last night, start here: why are there sirens near me?
The fix for next time: a scanner that never sleeps, for about $250
Every lookup method on this page depends on someone else — a feed volunteer, an app's coverage map, an agency webmaster. This kit removes the middleman: a silent little box on a shelf that decodes your county's digital dispatch directly off the air, streams it to any browser in the house, and records every call with timestamps. Next time the sirens go past, the answer is already on your phone — and free, open-source GopherTrunk is the software, so the parts below are the entire cost.
Why two receivers: one dongle stays locked to your police trunked system while the second covers fire/EMS or a neighboring system at the same time — the two channels a "what's going on?" moment actually needs. That's a trick a $500 handheld scanner can't do, and GopherTrunk drives both dongles from one Orange Pi.
Orange Pi 5
around $90
The RK3588 host that runs it all 24/7 — silent, low-power, and strong enough for both dongles with headroom to spare. GopherTrunk ships a native ARM64 Linux build for it.
Orange Pi 5 on Amazon →RTL-SDR Blog V4 kit
around $55
The dongle and the telescopic dipole antenna kit with coax and mounts in one box — this one holds your police system's control channel.
V4 + antenna kit on Amazon →RTL-SDR Blog V4 (second dongle)
around $35
Covers fire/EMS, a second trunked system, airband, or NOAA weather — simultaneously, not by giving up the first channel.
RTL-SDR V4 on Amazon →The complete parts list
| Part | Why it's in the kit | Approx $ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange Pi 5 | Always-on host for both dongles | ~$90 | Amazon → |
| RTL-SDR Blog V4 + dipole antenna kit | Receiver #1, antennas, coax, mounts | ~$55 | Amazon → |
| RTL-SDR Blog V4 (second) | Receiver #2 — fire/EMS or a second system | ~$35 | Amazon → |
| Powered USB 3.0 hub | Clean, stable power for two warm dongles | ~$35 | Amazon → |
| 16-piece SMA adapter kit | Joins any antenna to any dongle, first try | ~$18 | Amazon → |
| RG316 SMA pigtail kit | Flexible jumpers between hub, dongles, antennas | ~$15 | Amazon → |
| USB-C power supply (5V/4A+) | The Orange Pi 5 needs solid power for 24/7 duty | ~$15 | Amazon → |
| microSD card (64GB, A2) | OS plus months of recorded calls | ~$12 | Amazon → |
Kit total: about $250–275. Worthwhile upgrade once it's earned a permanent shelf: an outdoor discone antenna (~$40) that hears everything from 25–3000 MHz — see the antenna guide. Prefer a Raspberry Pi 5 host instead? Same build, swap the board — Pi 5 (8GB) on Amazon and the SBC build guide.
From boxes to first decoded call
- Flash 64-bit Linux (Debian/Ubuntu image) to the microSD and boot the Orange Pi headless.
- Plug in the powered hub, both dongles, and the antennas — the adapter kit bridges any connector mismatch.
- Install GopherTrunk — one free static binary, no dependencies: download, then follow the setup guide to point it at your county's system from RadioReference.
- Open the web console from any phone or laptop in the house — live calls, talkgroup names, and a scrollable, replayable recording archive.
Two honest caveats before you spend a dime: check RadioReference that your agencies are not encrypted — no device decodes AES — and skim the legality rules for your state (listening is legal in the US; a few states restrict use in vehicles). Rather have a no-computer, pocketable option instead? That's the dedicated scanner guide.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find out what happened in my neighborhood last night?
Work backward through the records the incident left: Broadcastify’s audio archives of your county’s scanner feed (paid tier) let you replay the dispatch traffic from the exact time; the agency’s calls-for-service or CAD log lists the call type and block; crime maps like CityProtect and SpotCrime plot it once the report posts; and the department’s blotter or press release covers anything major.
Why is there nothing in the news about what happened on my street?
News outlets cover a tiny fraction of emergency calls — typically fatalities, fires with damage, and major crimes. A medical call, a crash without serious injury, a mental-health call, or a fled suspect generates lights, sirens, even a helicopter, and zero coverage. Absence from the news says nothing about whether it happened.
Can I replay police scanner audio from last night?
Yes, two ways. Broadcastify archives its volunteer feeds — a premium subscription lets you pick your county’s feed and a 30-minute window from the past days and listen. Or run your own recording scanner: software like GopherTrunk with an RTL-SDR records every call on a system with timestamps and talkgroup labels, so you scroll to 2:47 a.m. and press play — no subscription, no feed dependency.
How long until last night's incident shows up on crime maps?
Typically one to three days, sometimes a week — maps like CityProtect, Community Crime Map, and SpotCrime ingest incident reports after they’re written and approved, not live calls. Calls that never become an incident report (medical calls, unfounded alarms, assists) may never appear at all.
Can I request the police report for something that happened near me?
Yes — incident reports are public records in every state, requested through the agency’s records portal or a written public-records request. Expect fees, response times from days to weeks, and redactions or denial while an investigation is open. For a quick answer, the CAD log entry or blotter line is usually enough.
What was the helicopter doing over my house at 3 a.m.?
Flight-tracking history answers this precisely: ADS-B Exchange lets you replay the aircraft’s actual track for free — identify the operator and watch the orbit. Pair the track’s timestamps with scanner-feed archives from the same window and you usually get the whole story: what was searched for, where, and how it ended.