Safe Heist Highlights Combination of Errors
Burglars make off with more than $800,000 and expose an alarm system’s shortcomings in the process. The break-in of a jewelry store’s safe leaves lessons in its wake on how alarm contractors can lessen liability exposure.
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Theft Should Have Been Foiled
So what went wrong? First, the alarm contractor failed in its duty to initially and properly perform a security survey of the protected premises. Such an assessment should have immediately identified the serious vulnerability of placing a safe directly adjacent to a common wall area of the store, of which was only made of drywall. Secondly, the jeweler’s safe should have been completely protected with electronic vibration detection (EVD), or with an equivalent form of protection. Only purporting to protect the safe’s door is meaningless and usually the last place an intruder will go to attack a safe.
Given that, we also need to pay careful attention to each of the component parts the installing alarm contractor selected for this particular installation. They consisted of a UL-Listed control panel that was listed for household use only, a GSM cellular radio backup that was found to have never been registered with the radio network and several motion detectors that did not provide adequate interior movement detection.
In addition, the circuit board of the control panel revealed that it was never electrically grounded and that, critically, all of its supervisory end-of-line resistors (EOLRs) were found to be improperly terminated within the control panel set of the system. Undeniably, this covert action bypasses the inherent safeguards of the security system and makes it dangerous and unreliable. Indeed, the fact pattern in this matter not only amplifies but underscores the overall recklessness and deliberate disregard this particular alarm contractor orchestrated in the work they claimed to perform for this subscriber.
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This all could have been avoided had the alarm contractor simply complied with its duties of minimum compliance with the equipment manufacturer’s specifications of the control panel set, UL standards, and nationally recognized industry standards and practices. Then the perpetrators’ initial act of “shorting out” the protective loop circuit leading to the safe would have immediately activated the store’s security system and simultaneously transmitted an alarm signal to the remote station through the system’s onboard digital alarm communicator transmitter (DACT).
Of course, this detection capability would have required all EOLRs to be both properly installed and terminated at the end of each protection loop zone of the system. Notwithstanding this point of detection capability was the fact the criminals were purposefully doing everything they could to avoid the security system from detecting them.
Had the burglars been detected by the security system, once they shorted out the system’s protective loop circuit, when they had not yet even begun attacking the safe’s side wall, in all likelihood they would have abandoned their efforts. This is logical since the opportunity to gain undetected entry into the safe would have been taken away from them, and the looming threat of intervention by the police would be an unacceptable risk and reality.
Lessons to Take Away from Crime
From a security management perspective, the crime triangle represents three areas of concern and focus: one being the “motive” of the perpetrator, two being the “intent” of the criminal, and the third being what if any “opportunity” there exists to commit the crime.
In the security industry, particularly the alarm industry, we need to focus primarily on the only part of the crime trian
gle we can help control. We must proactively do whatever we can to take the opportunity away from the perpetrator through proven electronic and physical security methodologies. These include early detection, early warning and immediate notification of the police. Time is the most important commodity when it comes to security and the ability by the prudent alarm contractor to break the crime triangle.
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About the Author
Jeff Zwirn, SSI Contributor
Jeffrey D. Zwirn, CPP, CFPS, CFE, FACFEI, CHS-IV, SET, CCI, FASI&T, MBAT, writes Security Sales & Integration’s “Security Science” column. He is also president of IDS Research and Development, an alarm and security consultation, expert witness and training authority providing nationwide services on all issues related to alarm and security matters. He can be reached at 800-353-0733.
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