The WNY Listening Post

Western New York’s Scanner-Fed Tabloid

Amherst · Crystal Commons

Welfare check at Crystal Commons pulls Amherst PD into Kevlar posture; by the time officers reach the door, the victim is gone

At 4:15 p.m., an Amherst PD supervisor put a welfare check out at 3906 Ridgely Road, the Crystal Commons apartments off Sheridan. The complainant said her friend was inside one of the units “with a male that's threatening to throw her out and threatening to stab her”.

The next voice on the air was the officer calling for “Kevlar” — the terse, five-second cue that always tells you what the room felt like without saying it. Eight minutes later the answer was quieter than anyone had planned for: “Jeff, we're out in front of 3906 and the victim just took off”. Units stood down without an arrest, without a scene, and without the caller she had come to help.


Overheard: The WiresCops, cabbies, custodians, dispatchers — off-script

Amherst · 1951 Niagara Falls Boulevard

The playpen dispatch: Amherst PD sent to a Niagara Falls Boulevard hotel because the other kids want in on the toys

At 7:36 p.m., an Amherst PD dispatcher put a call out at a hotel at 1951 Niagara Falls Boulevard, room 144. The nature of the disturbance, per dispatch, verbatim: “She's upset that the other kids at the hotel want to play with her toys”. The officer's response was not on the air.

BNIA · American Airlines ramp

22 Frank, one Bose case: an American ramp agent scrambles up the jetway on a passenger's last-second SOS

Late Thursday afternoon, an American Airlines ramp voice at BNIA cut across the ordinary weight-and-METAR chatter with an unusually specific problem: “Hey, I have a passenger here that was in 22F. He left a case for his Bose headphones in it”. The reply, ninety seconds later: “That's clear. I'll head up in and take a look right now. You said 22F?”. The passenger, one imagines, hovering just past the jet bridge. The Bose case: still up there, seat pocket 22F, waiting.

Depew · FRS Channel 22

"WQIM 689 in Depew": on a smoke-hazed Thursday night, two ham voices meet on FRS 22 and marvel at Michigan's AQI

For about five minutes just after 9:30 p.m., Buffalo's shared FRS Channel 22 turned into a two-way porch conversation between a hobbyist calling himself Mark, WQIM 689 in Depew, and a distant handle D-491. They started with a windshield mystery — “I hit a lot of stuff on my hood and believe it or not, my windshield — a smoky like residue almost, it looked like dirt almost but I know it wasn't dirt and it wasn't pollen either” — and drifted into wildfire-smoke shoptalk, comparing air quality index numbers as if reading the paper together.

The moment that lands is Mark thinking out loud about the city's firefighters on days like today: “God bless the guys in the city of Buffalo because I don't know how they do it in conditions like this where you already have trouble with the air quality and then you add on something on top of it”. He signs off politely, “When it's clear nights like this, you can reach anybody, so thank you very much”, and the channel goes quiet.

BuffaloLimo dispatch · 01:21

Chapter and verse from the taxi channel: BuffaloLimo dispatch checks in at 1:21 a.m. with "Proverbs 3, 9, 6, 1"

At 1:21 a.m., in the middle of the usual overnight cab-dispatch checkboard, a BuffaloLimo voice keyed the mic and offered exactly one line: “Proverbs 3, 9, 6, 1”. No context. No number. No pickup. Just the citation, cleanly enunciated for anyone listening — which, at 1:21 a.m. on the taxi channel, is a real question.


Regional BlotterBeyond the Northtowns — WNY at large

Wyoming County · Route 28, near Minor Road

Wyoming County rollover, one vehicle, seven occupants — mutual aid to Warsaw just before midnight

At 11:38 p.m., a Wyoming County dispatcher toned PA-11 and PA-12 mutual aid into Warsaw for a one-car rollover on County Route 28 near Minor Road. The number that jumped off the page — and never got walked back on the air — was the occupant count: “one-car rollover, seven occupants, unknown injuries”. Injuries were listed as unknown.

Other Calls of Note

[18:49]Amherst · 218 Meadow Spring Lane Amherst PD ran a follow-up on an overnight larceny from a vehicle at Meadow Spring Lane[*]; no other detail on the air.
[20:20]Amherst · 48 Patton Place Main-Transit EMS to 48 Patton Place for a patient with altered mental status and a note of pneumonia; routine transport.
[23:46]Amherst · 367 North Forest Road Squad EMS to 367 North Forest Road, between Morningside Lane and Briar, for an 83-year-old female who fell with neck pain.
[02:12]Amherst · 16 Spindrift Court Domestic dispute at 16 Spindrift Court, apartment 7, complainant reporting a boyfriend had put hands on the patient; officers requested.
[18:07]Cheektowaga · U.S. Renal Care, 2861 Harlem Road EMS re-toned for a 51-year-old male with chest pain at U.S. Renal Care, 2861 Harlem Road; second request went out three minutes after the first.
[15:55]Cheektowaga · Dairy Queen, 21 St. Joan Lane Cheektowaga PD dispatched to the Dairy Queen at 21 St. Joan Lane on a repeat complaint — dispatcher noted it was the second time.

Editor’s Note

A smoky Thursday-into-Friday in the Northtowns: NWS's Air Quality Alert ran back to back through the window, and it echoed through the wires — a Depew FRS hobbyist spent twenty minutes on the air Friday evening comparing Buffalo's haze to Michigan's, wondering how BFD works fires on days like this. On the police side, Amherst PD spent the late afternoon on a Ridgely Road welfare check that pulled units into Kevlar posture before the victim slipped away, and closed the window with a middle-of-the-night domestic on Spindrift. Regionally, the shift's oddest single line came out of Wyoming County just before midnight: seven people in one car, one rollover, on Route 28 near Minor Road.

Daily Gem

God bless the guys in the city of Buffalo because I don't know how they do it in conditions like this”

— Mark, WQIM 689, on FRS 22 out of Depew — 21:35

By the Numbers

Segments
1,879
Active systems
28
Busiest hour
16:00–17:00 (Ridgely welfare check + Cheektowaga midshift)
Regional Breaking
0
Updates
0
By Agency (top 5)
BucketSegs
Police735
Fire / EMS560
Hotel / shuttle / taxi156
Airport / aviation120
Schools78
By Area (top 5)
BucketSegs
Williamsville & Amherst720
Other Erie County205
Cheektowaga / Lancaster / Depew155
Niagara County112
Buffalo95

Agency & area buckets are estimated from channel labels and inferred speaker context; segment counts group tightly-timed transmissions on the same call.

[*] = a name the scanner audio left uncertain and could not be confirmed against an official source; treat as unverified. Routine street-name fixes against official municipal lists are applied silently.
The WNY Listening Post · Friday, July 17, 2026 · A.M. Edition · Vol. I, No. 69
Compiled from public radio scanner traffic via the WNY Listening Post automated pipeline. Transcriptions are AI-generated and may contain errors; verify names and details before action.
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