"There's a monkey in an abandoned house." That was the call that came across a Kent County police scanner. If you're interested in listening to nefarious activity on a police scanner, this one would have gotten your attention. It went like this:

Police: "9708"

Dispatcher: "Go, 9708."

Police: "448 Hall Street Southeast. It appears there's a, um, monkey in an abandoned house."

Pause.

Police: "It is in a cage."

After hearing this, I made some calls. At first, I tried the Kent County Sherriff's department. They transferred me to the Grand Rapids Police Department. The operator looked through the records from the previous night and found nothing on the call sheet about monkeys.

I was informed that if there was a monkey in an abandoned house, the GRPD would forward the call to Grand Rapids Animal Control.

I contacted the distributer of the content. It turns out the call was from 2 years ago.

We assumed it was a pet that was left behind. I'm curious, though...what kind of monkey was it? Why did he get left behind? Where is he now? What did he do that was so awful that he was put in a cage and left behind? Poor monkey.

The police scanner that caught the action belongs to Grumpyguy21 from Grand Rapids. It's a Uniden HomePatrol2.

People monitor police scanner frequencies and listen to live police scanner audio feeds for various reasons. For instance, reporters and journalists rely upon these transmissions to learn about potential news stories they feel should be shared with the general public.

Another reason that listeners gravitate towards online police scanners is the live content. Where else can you hear live police chases as it happens.

Scanners can cost anywhere from $200 to $700. This specific scanner has a price tag of $599. For Apple mobile devices, you can go to iTunes and download a scanner app. You can hear police and firefighters talk.

Listening to Grand Rapids police chatter is more difficult than it used to be. As of July 1, all of Kent County public services police, fire, ambulance, and public works have switched to the MPSC system and are no longer available to the public. Some local fire dispatch is still available.

Here is the actual call: