Officers to ignore burglar alarms, save about $600,000 a year (Fremont)

[Kadie]

FREMONT
Officers to ignore burglar alarms, save about $600,000 a year
They'll respond only if evidence shows a crime occurred
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, January 21, 2005


Burdened by thousands of false alarms, police in Fremont will become the first in California to stop responding to burglar alarms unless there is a confirmed break-in or security breach, officials said Thursday.

The new policy, effective Feb. 18, will allow police in the Bay Area's fourth-largest city to handle more urgent calls and save the city about $600, 000 a year in staff time and equipment costs, Fremont Police Chief Craig Steckler said.

"I'm going to get out of the alarm business," Steckler said. "I was never asked permission to get into it."

Under the policy, police won't respond to burglar alarms unless a resident, property owner or alarm company employee can show evidence that a crime occurred, such as glass breakage or seeing a suspicious person. Officers, however, will still respond to panic, duress and robbery alarms.


more...
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/21/BAG74AU3GU1.DTL

I'm sure this will only last until a call they don't respond to turns about to be the real thing and someone ends up getting hurt.

[shoelace414]

1. Milwaukee did that about a year ago

because 95% of alarms were false.. there was a news story today about how police are responding an average of three minutes faster to Emergencies because of it.