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Fri 21 Jan, 2005 04:23 pm
U.S. National - Reuters
Police in California City to Ignore Burglar Alarms
2 hours, 58 minutes ago U.S. National - Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Police in a prosperous Californian city near San Francisco will begin ignoring most burglar alarms, prompted by too many false alarms and too little money.
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Letter to Alarm Owners (Fremont Police)
Fremont police said the overwhelming majority of warning signals they receive are false alarms that cost the city $600,000 a year. Because of budget cuts, starting next month they will only respond if they have additional verification, such as a video feed of a crime occurring or a witness report.
"We had 7,000 alarm calls last year and 66 of those were burglary," police chief Craig Steckler told KTVU television. "What do you want us to do?"
Several large cities have similar policies, including Salt Lake City, Milwaukee and Las Vegas, the police department said.
The city estimates 41 percent of Fremont's 209,000 residents earn more than $100,000 a year.
But California's state and local governments have faced money problems in recent years. Salinas, author John Steinbeck's hometown, recently said it would close all its libraries for financial reasons.
Most homes with burglar alarms are equipped with remote monitoring, so the security company responsible should not forward the call to the police if they don't feel it is necessary. Say I trip my own alarm, I can walk in, and either key in or literally shout a code out and turn it off. Simple.
Now, say someone sets the alarm off using the emergency button. When this happens, under all circumstances the cops should immediately be sent to the home, even if the dog got ahold of the remote, so to speak.
I think the statements made by the police chief are way, way out of line. They save some portion of $600K, just wait until they get their first lawsuit for negligence in a murder case.
Retards.
Can you imagine a company like ADT not being able to convince the police to respond. Well, there goes that business. Prior answer about lawsuit is very valid.
I don't have such an alarm so I'm not sure, but don't most alarm companies have a fairly stiff financial penalty for too many owner goofs?
I was distracted by the (to me) irrelevant stat that 41% of Fremont's pop earns more than $100k.
The police spend $600k on 7k false alarms (about $100 each). Okay, sounds about right.
Seems to me the city council should either increase the police dept budget or require that abusers of the 911 system reimburse the city for responding (as they should) to alarms that turn out to be false.
Here, the bill for false alarms goes directly to the homeowner. It's a big fine, and after 3 (as I recall) false alarms, the police simply won't show up anymore.
Most people sign up for the service that has the security firm show up first, and then determine if a call should go to the police
That's what I thought, Beth..
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