"Proactive policing"

I saw this police-penned story come across the wire. It's actually a nice tale of police and the alarm industry working together to do what both are supposed to do: stop crime and keep people and property safe.

I just find this part interesting:

One idea centered on “Eliminating the number of steps with the alarm,” that caused a Hayward Baker representative being notified before the SPPD that the alarm had been activated.

Due to the number of thefts at the company the SPPD and Hayward Baker decided to “Have the security company call us directly so we could catch the guys there on the property,” said Chief MacKinnon.

When the January 12 report of the alarm was received by the SPPD the Officers “went down and skipped” the normal security measures of checking doors and windows to see if the business had been broken into.

Ignoring the weird capitalization and distaste for commas, what's strange here is we have a police department touting its "proactive policing," when, in fact, they wouldn't have caught anybody doing anything if it weren't for the alarm company, whose name for some reason can't be mentioned. They don't have any problem naming the establishment that's protected, Hayward Baker, but can't seem to remember which alarm firm it was that was so compliant in changing protocol to suit the police department's needs. Huh.

Over on Leischen's blog, there's discussion of alarm companies using free labor. Well, how many criminals are the cops catching if no one calls them up to tell them where they are?

Vegas and Quiet Riot use ECV

I find it interesting that security companies are often involved in news stories, but are almost always left anonymous, and everything they do is completely unquestioned and taken as completely ho-hum.

In this case, I'm talking about the stories regarding the death of Quiet Riot frontman Kevin DuBrow (stop pretending you didn't like "Cum on Feel the Noize" at the time; you know you did). Check out these two paragraphs:

Original Quiet Riot bassist Kelly Garni posted a statement online Wednesday describing the details of how he learned about the death of Kevin DuBrow, his friend and the band's singer, and again asked for fans to withhold speculation on what might have caused the 52-year-old singer's passing.

"I want to thank everyone who refrained from jumping to conclusions and starting rumors," wrote Garni, who has spent his years since leaving the band as a professional photographer. He explained that at around 3:15 p.m. Sunday he got a call from the security company that handles DuBrow's home. "I am the only one who gets a call whenever his alarm goes off and usually I go to his house and let the guards in to check things out," he said. "However, Kevin had had his front doors replaced a few weeks ago and I did not yet have a key, so I told them to send the guards and if there was a problem I would go there and take care of it. They also told me that Kevin's voicemail was full. That was the first sign of trouble to me."

The reporter doesn't wonder if this is standard procedure at all, which surprises me. So, the alarm goes off and his ex-bandmate gets the first call? That totally makes sense. Well, it does if you understand the principles of enhanced call verification (I'm assuming Garni means first call after calling the house), but if I was just Joe Schmoe, I might wonder if something could have been prevented if the police were immediately dispatched (which is probably not the case here, as his voice mail was full and he was probably long dead by the time the alarm went off).

Also, which security company? Why is that just not important? Are all security companies the same? If I were the security company here, I would contact the local papers and talk about my role in the story and use it as a forum to promote the fact that without a security system, who knows how long DuBrow might have lain dead in his house? It's a great opportunity, too, to raise the discussion of verified response.

Making no-response lemonade

After 24 hours getting back to the East Coast from the CSAA show in Hawaii, it's ironic that this article about the consequences of Fontana, California's verified response policy should come across my desk (that desk being in the Newark airport).

Wednesday, I sat on a panel with other journalists and was asked if I thought verified response would take hold nationally. I said it was my opinion that public relations nightmares with burglars confronting store- and homeowners in the act of verifying alarms (as happened here in Dallas) would make an increase of fines much more likely, which is the trend we're seeing nationally with our alarm ordinance watch column.

I think this article backs me up.

Note:

Last year the Fontana Police Department responded to more than 8,500 burglar alarm calls -- an average of about 24 a day. More than 99 percent of them proved to be false alarms -- a tremendous waste of money and resources, said Lone Star Security Regional Manager Bruce Boyer.

Notwithstanding the overuse of the m-dash in those sentences -- fair enough.

Boyer asked: Why have high-trained, highly-skilled police officers responding to burglary alarms when their time could be put to much better use?

This, however, is not the next logical question. Why aren't they instead asking how to eliminate the false alarms? Why aren't they talking about enhanced call verification or a CP-01 standard panel? They probably do that later, right? Not so much.

Anyway, Fontanta passed a verified response law that went effective Oct. 1, and here are some opinions:

And that's important to Gerry Herrera, storeowner and manager of Sonora Tire Shop. "We want a security company coming out and checking on the place," he said.

Makes sense. I don't want to go burglar-hunting either.

For Mini Perez, Sonora's chief financial officer, the P.D.'s change of policy makes sense. "It's less taxpayer expense," she said. "It was a waste of time for the police coming out. It should be the responsibility of the alarm company to provide the service. Police have better things to do."

Aack! Are you people reading this? The police have better things to do than respond to alarms and make sure people are safe? That kind of opinion on the part of the city can only be the result of terrible mismanagement by local alarm companies. Sorry guys. How can it get to the point where you're officially the boys that cry wolf?

It's no wonder Lone Star Security has been able to capitalize by offering to "come in and use the existing alarm system" and add on an in-house guard service. (Which is code for come in and get people to break their contract, right? Not that I'm saying I don't understand the business model, just trying to be clear.)

Here's Boyer again:

"The Police Department is right. It's the alarm company's responsibility to investigate," he said. "The Police Department has better use for its officers. Cops are highly trained to do dozens of jobs. We are trained to do one thing well -- respond."

This guy has completely won the marketing battle. By framing the question as, "Do you want to waste police officers' time?," he's gotten the answer he's looking for: "Of course not. Can we pay you to verify our alarms?"

He talks about being partners with the police department, and there is some sense to his policy of alerting the cops that they're responding, kind of a back door dispatch. That's a good thing, but I'm troubled by this part:

The gun stays in the holster and only comes out when an officer faces deadly force. And that deadly force must have the ability to deliver it against an officer or customer, said Boyer.

"If the deadly force is across the street holding a knife, the gun stays in the holster," he said. "Our job is to investigate alarm calls. If there's criminal activity, we call the cops. We are not Rambo."

Well, not only are you not Rambo, you are also not a police officer. Let's hope deadly force is never used, but it's hard to rely on hope in that potential situation. You think people are upset about Blackwater shooting innocent Iraqis (I gave you an Irish link, for non-US perspective)? What happens to a community when a private security company shoots a kid reaching for a cell phone? If a police officer does that, it's one thing. In this case he was placed on leave. I think it's a very different situation if it's a private security officer, where the city doesn't have recourse and the company is not accountable to the citizens.

All of this tells me that alarm companies have to make sure their communities don't get to the point where they think they're just crying wolf, and they need to work on programs like those developed by SIAC to work with states on enhanced call verification and CP-01.