Rockford's Crime Trackers

Rockford Scanner was first started in 2009 by Rickie Traeger as a digital world where scanner hobbyists could come together.  Three years later Rockford Scanner's boomed into a large information outlet delivering the latest news concerning crime, fires, missing persons, and community events as it's heard on the police scanner.
In addition to her fulltime job Lisa Conard of Byron volunteers her time to act as an administrator of the website.  Conard will listen to police scanners through her phone, filter through the traffic, and post what she thinks the public wants/needs to know about.  To her, and other volunteers, they consider their hobby a community service.
"It brings people together.  It brings people to call into police if they know something," said Conard.
As of late Rockford Scanner has 23,404 Facebook fans and 1,501 Twitter followers.
For some fans, Rockford Scanner helped stop crime before it got too close.
Jim Sadler and Anthony Duran of Rockford recall a time when they heard about a nearby robbery.
"Tony heard about it minutes after it happened and the guy happened to drive through our neighborhood.  We were able to help police apprehend that person so it's a significant value to us," said Sadler.
Rockford are also fans.  They say it alerts the community in a timely manner, sometimes faster than police can.
But administrators at Rockford Scanner have had their fair share of complaints.
"We try to be considerate about the types of posts we do. We don't want to post anything we wouldn't want to hear about our personal families on the scanner page," said Conard.
Rockford Scanner has transformed from a hobby into an official freelance news reporting venture.