Ravenwood - 09/20/05 06:45 AM
The Dallas News reports that area police officers may no longer be required to respond to burglar alarms. Apparently a vast majority of the alarms are false, so as police budgets tighten look for this trend to grow. Earlier this year a Californian city did the same thing.
Police Chief David Kunkle and several City Council members are advocating "verified response" to keep police patrolling neighborhoods and responding to higher-priority calls. Almost all activated burglar alarms in Dallas are false, statistics indicate.Keep in mind that police officers are not bound to serve and protect individuals, only the collective. Unfortunately they are only able to stop crime about 5% of the time, with the other 95% of their work consisting of investigating after the fact and filling out reports. The only one who can really look out for number one is you.A verified-response system would most likely require security companies to determine whether an activated alarm was valid before officers were dispatched. That would probably cost the companies money, while Dallas saved money.
Category: Defending Your Life
Comments (3) top link me
Most security alarms already work this way - Dallas was an exception if the cops would respond without confirmation. But there are plenty of cases of cops failing to respond to phone calls from actual victims, so it doesn't affect your point. If the cops respond promptly, there's still time for the goblins to kill you, grab some valuables, and get away - but if they decide to torture you for a few hours, there's still no guarantee that the cops will show up.
You do know how to get the cops to respond promptly, right? You call back a few minutes later and say, "never mind, I shot him." Not guaranteed to work in a really rural area of America, where someone might have to get out of bed to respond, but in any city or suburb it will move you right to the top of their priorities.
Posted by: markm at September 20, 2005 10:40 AMThat is absolutely true, markm; if you tell the police you are armed, they will show up quickly to keep you from unauthorized vermin killing, which seems to be a higher priority than the life or property of a law-abiding citizen.
Posted by: Robert Garrard at September 20, 2005 11:12 AMA real reason to ditch the alarms and get a gun
Posted by: screaming eagle at September 20, 2005 10:13 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
