Detroit Police To Cut Back On Alarm Response Detroit police are making some changes regarding burglar alarms in what appears is an attempt to keep more officers on the streets. A memo, obtained by WWJ Newsradio 950, says the Detroit Police Department has reviewed calls for service and found that false alarms have the greatest financial and staffing impact on the department. According to the memo, sent to alarm companies and signed by Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee, 98 percent of alarms handled by the DPD are false. Effective Monday, August 22, the police department will no longer respond to burglar alarm calls from monitoring companies unless the alarm company verifies the alarm. That can be by having a security guard go to the business or home and verify an officer needs to respond, or by having the homeowner or business owner go to the premises and verify a break-in. http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/08/15/detroit-police-to-cut-back-on-alarm-response/ Why pay taxes for the police then? Why not just hire a night watchman with a shotgun? _
Jeez, ya dum(*)(*)(*)(*)s...why don't you just invite the scumbags in the door? Why in the hell would this be made public knowledge?
Racist. I think he was referring to the music but I don't know. You're automatic assumption that Detroit is a "black" city is clear, though.
Sorry, Don, but I disagree. When over 98% of the alarms are false alarms it's false advertising to call the alarms burglar alarms. Let the stores hire a company that will send a response unit. Whey should everyone else pay for the tens of thousands of false alarms? When I was a police supervisor I ordered dispatch to ignore alarms frequently. It always made our attorney quiver but we had work to do. Family fights, bar brawls, robberies, sexual assaults, drunken drivers, prowlers, and actual burglaries all took priority. Almost every actual call took priority over an alarm where 98+ times out of a hundred was bogus. If you move that to residential alarms it was 100% were bogus. In our city, businesses finally had a set number of false alarms, I think it was three, and then they went on a do not respond list until they demonstrated material changes in they system. We also had a very high fee, fine, for false alarms. Businesses generally got rid of the alarm systems, improved building security, and we did not have an increase in burglaries.
Who said anything about making alarms a priority? Did you ever set up a policy to simply not respond to alarms at all? _
I would have if I could have as I suspect Detroit would. Read the OP.. Hell, it's yours, Don. Detroit will respond once the alarm companies have verified the alarm. That's a sneaky way of saying they won't be responding which is what you're recommending. As a taxpayer, I do not want the police going on calls where you know, know for a fact, that over 98% of the calls are bogus. Now, if you'd prefer a system where the police say they will respond the day after tomorrow, workload permitting, that's fine with me. I think it's more honest to say you won't respond.
