Los Angeles Police Panel Looks Into Verified Response for Burg Alarms

LOS ANGELES

The city of Los Angeles is yet another municipality looking
into the verified response issue. On April 9, the Los
Angeles Police Commission was scheduled to consider a
proposal to make alarm companies in the area have their own
armed response guards respond to burglar alarms and verify
whether the call is legitimate before alerting police.
Police, however, would continue to respond to robbery,
duress and panic button calls.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Police Commission was to ask to request that the city attorney look at amendments to the city’s alarm code to make the change, and direct the Police Department to draft a policy change. The commission would then revisit the issue.

The proposal replicates the one in Salt Lake City, where false alarm calls to police fell by about 90 percent practically overnight after a new ordinance went into effect, according to Shanna Werner, alarms administrator for the Salt Lake City police.

The article states that the Los Angeles Police Department receives more than 100,000 false burglar alarm calls each year. False alarms make up about 92 percent of all the burglar alarm calls that ring into the Police Department yearly. The article also states that this particular chore consumes the manpower equivalent of about 80 officers per year.

Tom Szell, western regional vice president for Protection One, the nation’s second-largest alarm company, said in the article his firm would oppose such a change in Los Angeles. “We have so many customers in Los Angeles and there are very limited guard response companies, and we don’t want to degrade the service,” Szell said.

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