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Audio: Boston dispatch details police heroics

Almost an hour of audio details the frantic conversations between dispatchers, medics, and police

By Stephen Braun and Jack Gillum
The Associated Press via The State

WASHINGTON — The Boston Marathon was still in progress on a bright Monday afternoon, but for Boston city police officers using the department’s radio scanner channel, the day was winding down. At 2:51 p.m., an unidentified police dispatcher told several units that they could head out from the day’s assignments.

The frequency went silent. Then, at 2:52 p.m. Monday, the police channel surged with the high-pitched shout of a police supervisor caught at the epicenter of urban devastation.

Over the next several hours, the urgent and sometimes garbled appeals that flickered across Boston’s emergency services radio bands gave full voice to the split-second and pressurized decisions that the city’s police and fire uniformed and supervisory officials made under the extreme duress of a long, hard day.

Full Story: Radio scans show Boston police, medic heroic