Last night, a police officer in a town more than 150 miles away from me was injured in a shooting. At midnight, the police decided to send out a cell phone alert, called a “Blue Alert,” to everyone within several hundred miles of the crime. Why? Who knows?
I had just completed 13 hours of work in the Emergency Room. I was due back at work in only eight hours. (Working for two different departments leads to odd hours.) So I was deep asleep when this stupid shit woke me up. Why do over the 20 million people that live in Florida need to know about a crime that took place in a county with a population of only 22,000 people?
Amber alerts, Silver Alerts, Blue Alerts, Gray Alerts, and whatever other alerts the authorities send out are ridiculous.
8 Comments
Ratus · February 23, 2022 at 8:40 am
So that’s what that was.
All it got me to do was turn off that alert category.
Jonathan · February 23, 2022 at 9:21 am
The only alerts my phone won’t let me turn off are Presidential Alerts, whatever they are.
I have everything else turned off.
BobF · February 23, 2022 at 10:04 am
Had to watch the English and Spanish versions twice on cable TV and it was a LONG one by the time they gave the description. The whole idea is ignorant. I’m going to see it on cable TV and then jump into my car and drive far far away to find “BUT NOT APPROACH” this guy? Or I’m going to leave home and drive around just in case I might see him?
Big Ruckus D · February 23, 2022 at 1:27 pm
I’ve disabled all classes of alerts possible on my phones. They have so many now that it has become nothing but background noise to be ignored. They also broadcast to far too wide an area for most alerts, such that huge numbers of people outside the concerned area are bothered by these needlessly.
This leads to complacency and ignoring the alerts (or turning them off, as I have) which renders them useless, such that they may as well not have existed to begin with. This was all just overreaction to the karens of society screaming “govt has to do something about missing kid/senior”, or now a cop being shot.
Why do I give a shit if a cop gets shot? Nobody sends out an alert to millions if I, a humble tradesman, gets shot, so what makes these fuckers with badges so special? Yeah, they aren’t, so piss off with blowing up my phone when one catches a bullet. That’s an occupational hazard of your chosen profession, suck it up. Like I’m going to try to stop a cop killer anyway, even if I had him in my sights 10 feet away.
Even weather alerts now are frequently overly vague, and the alert area selected for notification is well beyond the geographic boundries of the affected locale. All this stuff is just technological detritus now. We developed the capability, and then proceeded to overuse it to the point of diminishing return. Kind of like a smack junkie who needs ever larger hits to feel anything, until it kills them.
D · February 23, 2022 at 4:28 pm
Just wait. Rainbow alerts are coming.
You being a raaaycis? Rainbow alert.
Big Ruckus D · February 23, 2022 at 4:35 pm
And the audible alarm will sound something like this:
“Attention thir, thith ith a very important warning! Pleath lithen!”
Anonymous · February 23, 2022 at 8:30 pm
Just turn off the alerts man. Easy.
Paulb · February 23, 2022 at 9:22 pm
BROWN ALERT- Bullshit happening that we want to scare the shit out of you about while you sleep.
Anyone else remember that part of Fahrenheit 451 when the government Blue Alerted everyone during prime time on TV to look out their windows for the main character?
Oh shit.
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