https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZpTO7IFtA is worth the 15 minutes, but the TL;DW is that the kids are just using it as an in-joke marker (i.e. the phrase is a shibboleth), but its origin is in lyrics* by the rapper Skrilla referring to police codes for a dead body.
Just as an aside, most police codes aren’t really standardized across different agencies.
There’s a handful of 10-codes that are pretty much universal, like “10-4”
67 isn’t one of those codes. A lot of departments do use it for a report of a death
But it’s also commonly used to advise of an important incoming message
And other agencies may have other uses for it
And other agencies use other systems besides 10 codes, I believe some departments in CA have been known to use penal code numbers
But so because of that, there’s been a big movement in emergency service to use plain language over codes for the last decade or two, mostly since Katrina since different agencies using different codes lead to a lot of miscommunication there.
I work in 911 dispatch, at my agency and pretty much everywhere around me it’s all plain language. One or two 10-codes linger around, more as informal slang than anything that gets official use. 10-4 sometimes gets used, but that’s practically just part of the English language now.
10-96 also kind of lingers around in my agency, which in the set of 10-codes they used before I started was for a subject with mental health issues. We’re not really supposed to use it but no one has really come up with a better shorthand for it so it still pops up from time to time, mostly from our officers.
I did know that US codes weren’t standardised, partially because the video covers it - perhaps I should have phrased it as “a police code” to be more technically correct. Edit: or bothered to check the video so could have written “Philadelphia police code” - but then I would have missed out on your reply.
Funnily enough, I actually work in an agency that’s very close to Philly and deal with my counterparts in the city fairly regularly.
I don’t get (or want) to listen to a whole lot of PPD radio chatter, we have plenty in our own county to keep us busy, so I don’t know for certain if they’re actually still using 10-codes or any other similar system or not. I can’t think of any time I’ve heard a Philly officer or dispatcher use one with me, but it’s certainly possible that they’re still in use there internally.
Also even though we’re using plain language, there’s still some weird miscommunication that happens.
I remember one time needing to advise Philly of a report of gunshots we received that might have been relevant to them, it was near their border.
So I called over to their dispatch and advised them that “we received a report of shots fired in the area of…”
Which kind of sent their dispatcher into a bit of a tizzy because in Philly dispatch lingo “shots fire” basically means an officer has fired their gun, but to us it’s just any report of gunshots (which, more often than not, means fireworks or something that the caller mistook for gunshots)
But in other cases it can just kind of bog things down.
I remember one training thing we had to do to keep our certifications up to date, part of it had to do with fire dispatch.
And at the beginning of that, our instructor basically said “Almost nothing in this course is at all relevant to us. But it’s a national standard and we have to teach this to you”
It had a lot to do with wildland firefighting and some other specific situations that have nothing to do with how things operate in our area or with the kinds of situations we deal with.
It was interesting, I learned some fun facts, but I haven’t yet had any reason to use any of the knowledge I picked up from that training.
And that time could have probably been better spent doing something else.
I still don’t get what 67 refers to. I missed it’d orgin story!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laZpTO7IFtA is worth the 15 minutes, but the TL;DW is that the kids are just using it as an in-joke marker (i.e. the phrase is a shibboleth), but its origin is in lyrics* by the rapper Skrilla referring to police codes for a dead body.
* are rapped words lyrics?
Just as an aside, most police codes aren’t really standardized across different agencies.
There’s a handful of 10-codes that are pretty much universal, like “10-4”
67 isn’t one of those codes. A lot of departments do use it for a report of a death
But it’s also commonly used to advise of an important incoming message
And other agencies may have other uses for it
And other agencies use other systems besides 10 codes, I believe some departments in CA have been known to use penal code numbers
But so because of that, there’s been a big movement in emergency service to use plain language over codes for the last decade or two, mostly since Katrina since different agencies using different codes lead to a lot of miscommunication there.
I work in 911 dispatch, at my agency and pretty much everywhere around me it’s all plain language. One or two 10-codes linger around, more as informal slang than anything that gets official use. 10-4 sometimes gets used, but that’s practically just part of the English language now.
10-96 also kind of lingers around in my agency, which in the set of 10-codes they used before I started was for a subject with mental health issues. We’re not really supposed to use it but no one has really come up with a better shorthand for it so it still pops up from time to time, mostly from our officers.
Interesting stuff, thanks for writing it up.
I did know that US codes weren’t standardised, partially because the video covers it - perhaps I should have phrased it as “a police code” to be more technically correct. Edit: or bothered to check the video so could have written “Philadelphia police code” - but then I would have missed out on your reply.
Funnily enough, I actually work in an agency that’s very close to Philly and deal with my counterparts in the city fairly regularly.
I don’t get (or want) to listen to a whole lot of PPD radio chatter, we have plenty in our own county to keep us busy, so I don’t know for certain if they’re actually still using 10-codes or any other similar system or not. I can’t think of any time I’ve heard a Philly officer or dispatcher use one with me, but it’s certainly possible that they’re still in use there internally.
Also even though we’re using plain language, there’s still some weird miscommunication that happens.
I remember one time needing to advise Philly of a report of gunshots we received that might have been relevant to them, it was near their border.
So I called over to their dispatch and advised them that “we received a report of shots fired in the area of…”
Which kind of sent their dispatcher into a bit of a tizzy because in Philly dispatch lingo “shots fire” basically means an officer has fired their gun, but to us it’s just any report of gunshots (which, more often than not, means fireworks or something that the caller mistook for gunshots)
Sounds like perhaps unified codes would be the answer to that problem!
It is and it isn’t
Certain things absolutely need to be standardized
But in other cases it can just kind of bog things down.
I remember one training thing we had to do to keep our certifications up to date, part of it had to do with fire dispatch.
And at the beginning of that, our instructor basically said “Almost nothing in this course is at all relevant to us. But it’s a national standard and we have to teach this to you”
It had a lot to do with wildland firefighting and some other specific situations that have nothing to do with how things operate in our area or with the kinds of situations we deal with.
It was interesting, I learned some fun facts, but I haven’t yet had any reason to use any of the knowledge I picked up from that training.
And that time could have probably been better spent doing something else.
Yes.