The victim is conscious, an excited dispatcher says. “The tone of the dispatcher’s voice or the officer’s voice is going to give you an indication of what kind of import they attach to the call.” “You can’t chase every call in a city this size,” Biro says.
Michael’s Hospital, the city’s major trauma centres, to get photos of the victim being rushed from an ambulance. If you’re too far away from the scene of a violent crime or accident, Biro says you’re better off positioning yourself at Sunnybrook or St. And car accidents only pay if someone dies or gets seriously hurt. The radios keep buzzing on this unseasonably warm Saturday night in January.Ĭalls come in about rowdy drunks and domestic assaults.
“My wife says that she’s never seen me happier in a job.” “I went from having a six-figure income to a low five-figure income,” he says, while sucking on a cigarette. But when the Toronto Police Service switches from its old analogue radio system to fully encrypted digital communications this spring, people like Biro may very well become a thing of the past. They used to be common now, there are only a handful of people doing this in the GTA. People call them stringers, nightcrawlers ( as in Jake Gyllenhaal’s character in a movie of the same name), ambulance chasers and vultures. After the city’s staff photographers have gone to bed, you’ll find Biro in his truck, listening to police, fire and EMS communications on radio scanners so he can chase the news as it happens. “And if someone is found with no vital signs, you always wait to hear if it’s a murder.”īiro is a freelance photojournalist, and one of the last of his kind. “Any time you hear something about a gun, you take note because it could escalate,” Victor Biro says from the cab of an SUV littered with coffee cups, camera equipment, radios and clothes. They make their living listening to the night.
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