False Alarm Update: Tulsa Police Chief Urges Verified Response Policy

TULSA, Okla.

February 07, 2006 SSI Staff

The police chief in Tulsa, Okla., is lobbying his city’s
government to approve a verified response policy for
commercial and residential burglar alarms. Under the
proposal by Police Chief Dave Been, police would not
respond to alarms unless someone on site would physically
verify them.

Been told television station KOTV that 98 percent of the
alarms his department responds to are false and that the
hours lost are equal to 22 officers per day. “That’s 22
more people responding to our priority one through three
calls, robberies in progress, homicides, rapes in
progress,” Been told KOTV.

However, Tulsa’s mayor and city council would have to
approve such a policy and have yet to consider it.

In other false alarm news …

HAYWARD, Calif.:The city council in the San
Francisco-area city has unanimously approved an enhanced
call verification (ECV) policy where alarm companies must
make two calls to an alarm owner to attempt to verify an
alarm before police respond. Alarm companies that dispatch
police without the two-call verification attempt will be
fined $250.

According to the Daily Review, the council measure
also includes a large raise to false alarm fees and
establishing a registration system for alarms.

After a “free” first false alarm in a year, alarm owners
will be fined $50 for a second false alarm, $150 for a
third, $300 for a fourth, and $500 for each false alarm
after that.

SHREVEPORT, La.:Residents in the bayou city are
threatening to vote against a sales tax renewal unless a
new alarm policy with higher false alarm fees is dropped.
According to the Shreveport Times, the residents
have been spurred on from a letter by the president of the
National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association (NBFAA), who is
the vice president of an alarm company in the area.

In a letter to his customers, Bayou Security Systems Vice
President Scot Colby, also NBFAA president, called the
ordinance passed by Shreveport’s council last
September “unfair and unethical” and advised residents to
push the council to reconsider the statute.

The ordinance changed the number of “free” false alarms in
a year from three to one with fines between $25 and $100
for repeated false alarm calls.

Four years ago, Shreveport voters approved a quarter-cent
sales tax increase to pay the salaries of police and fire
personnel. Under Louisiana law, voters must approve a
renewal of the tax this year.

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