Treatment of Alarms

[andrew85031]

Hi all.

I was just wondering what priority you put on dispatches when alarm companies call them in. I work in a central station right now, and dispatch on alarms all the time. I have noticed that some dispatch centers will state "we will get an officer en route right now." I had one last night that stated "We will dispatch on it between 10-15 minutes" and it was a bank alarm with multiple interior activations. I was kind of surprised. Others, for example, we call back for results, and it will have been a half hour or so and they aren't en route yet.

I am not complaining by any means, but just curious how dispatches treat alarms, lets assume burglary alarms. Is there a priority arrangement for how these are done, or not?

And also, how do dispatchers feel about the alarm companies? Do you find the high volume of false alarms irritating, and the volume of calls that come in?

I personally almost always have good experiences with dispatchers, but occasionally get that one lol.

Thanks all, and keep doing a good job.

[MrJim911]

We do not assign priorities to calls. The call info is given to the officers that are available in the area of the alarm if they are available, if they are not available, then the Sgt is advised of the call and it will be handled when officers become available off higher priority calls.

Personally I don't care about getting those calls, the only time they are annoying is when we get inundated with them during storms and we know they are all false alarms. It's 2007, we can put people in outer space, but apparently no one can make an alarm that's water proof or can sustain its restore mode just because it loses power.

We also don't give the alarm company eta's, we just gather the info and disconnect.

There are some alarm companies that I feel hire intelligent people that know english, others seem to hire people as they get off the boat that have a 3rd grade education. The ladder are the ones that are annoying.

[andrew85031]

I hear exactly what you are saying. Fortunately, I work in a central station that is rated within the top 3 in the country, and they only hire competent employees. The way it works with us is that we are contracted by alarm companies all over the country and just simply identify ourselves as that company, when in fact we are employed by an independent central station.

However, I too, trust me, wish that we could update these alarm systems for storms and such. However, one thing that our station does, is when the dealer calls in, we will create queues so that we don't act on certain signals.

It's always nice to get the dispatchers that also know how to take down the info and are pleasant to ya!

[txinvestigator1]

When you receive the alarm signal in your monitoring center all it means is that an electronic piece of equipment activated a phone dialer and sent a signal. It in no way means there is a burglary.

In fact, depending on whose records you look at, 95% to over 98% of alarms are false. (I am not referring to panic or hold up alarms).

Many areas of the country are now refusing to send police to alarms unless they are verified by another means.

There are simple ways to remedy this, from the consumer, alarm companies and monitoring center, but it boils down to cost. Audio response, two way voice or whatever you call it in your market costs more, but no one wanted to pay the extra because they had the police to act as errand boys and check every occurrence of an alarm activation. This resulted in literally thousands of lost man-hours chasing around false alarms.

In areas that have instituted no-response policies there is increased responsibility by the consumer, alarm company and monitoring center for their own equipment and service.

[andrew85031]

I fully understand what the alarm signals mean and what they indicate. They are simply a sensor going off, and often times, they are faulty or simply due to a vibration that is meaningless or any number of causes. I am fully aware how they operate.

Also, we do run two-way voice response systems in our station. I operate them actually. That way, we can hear what is going on inside.

Another method they have employed is two call verifications where you call the premise and then have to call a responsible party prior to dispatching to provide the option of no dispatch.

Las Vegas, for example, will not respond to an alarm if you have not dispatched a guard and the guard has requested PD response.

I had pointed out in my original post that the vast majority were false alarms, and the point was due to this, is there a lower priority placed on alarm activations? If I were you, I wouldn't want to respond to tons of them either. However, you do have actual signals as well. The reason I was surprised at the bank response was because we had something like the Front Door come in, then a few seconds later, lobby motion, then teller motion, etc. It was a sequence, which is why I was suprised. It wasn't something like just a living room motion going off.

Either way, I don't blame the response and trust me, I would appreciate it as much if it was a more perfect process!

[Piggy]

Alarm companies suck, and if I had my way the Police wouldn't even respond. The overwhelming amount of alarms are false, I'd say aroun 96-99%. So why do the Police do the work of these private alarm companies who are making money, by checking on their faulty equipment?

Then you have the alarm companies who don't call you back, or they will send the key holder into the middle of something without letting you know, or they don't even have any key holder information to begin with. I can also remember Nobi Alarm Company who failed to even have an address on some of their alarms.

If I had my way, I'd put it right underneath a barking dog complaint.

[WhiteLite]

We send an officer to most every alarm call. If we get more than 3 unfounded calls in one shift, the road supervisor can make the decision not to respond.

I'd say about 99% of our alarm calls (in total, fire and police) are unfounded. However, we have had a few holdup alarms that were real. I really wish we'd start fining them, it might cut down on the amount of calls we receive; At the very least we'd get some extra money for the dept.

But for our agency, as was stated in the "officer to every call" thread, we send an officer to most everything per the SOPs. Fun fun!

[james13f]

Hold-up / duress alarms are dispatched immediately regardless of permit.

Routine alarms (audible/intrusion/motion/etc) are dispatched within 10-20 minutes regardless of activations or audio. If the permit is not valid we will not dispatch.

We also don't give dispositions, so if your company calls to find out of it was an actual B/E or if we are enroute/arrived we will not advise that information. It is aggrivating enough having citizens call back for updates let alone an alarm company.

I don't have a problem with alarm calls, in fact they are a break from the screamers... It does get overwhelming during bad storms but we downgrade our response to 'when we get there we get there'.

Fines for false alarms:

1st one is free, 2nd is $50 and it goes up to $5000. A local grocery store was infamous for hitting it's panic button for no reason, it got to the point that false alarms were costing them $5000 each.

Who do you work for? I know most of ya'll's callbacks by heart.

[andrew85031]

Who do you work for? I know most of ya'll's callbacks by heart.

The Central Station I work for contracts out many companies. So we have several hundred phone numbers that we work off of. For example, if I call I will say I am from alarm company A and give that number so that when you call back into central station, it shows that company. For company B, I will give the number for company B, so that it will show as Company B when you call back in. So all in all, we have hundreds of phone numbers! ;)

[MrJim911]

If it is the "central station" I'm thinking of, the ole' 7737770707 central station, then they are most certainly not one of my favorites... But like all things they all have their gems and their bad apples.

[Valor55]

Tx is right about the false alarm rate being 95-98%. We do prioritize calls and alarms are the bottom of the pile. An alarm will hold until all the fights, domestics, man down, shots fired, GSW, calls are cleared. If there's an available unit then they go. Even if it's a legitimate burglary, the criminal will have fled long before the call even gets to dispatch. We're only going to investigate the burglary. It would have to be a miracle to be able to catch a burglar off an alarm.

[RemyG]

james it's about the same way over in raleigh, first false alarm is free, then it steadily gets more expensive

[andrew85031]

If it is the "central station" I'm thinking of, the ole' 7737770707 central station, then they are most certainly not one of my favorites... But like all things they all have their gems and their bad apples.

Negative on that one.

And also, I think they should fine people for multiple false alarms!

And to whomever stated the thing about catching someone off an alarm, you would be surprised. We actually usually get a few apprehensions a day I believe, maybe a week. Granted, with the number of dispatches to the number of actual people caught...well...thats a whole nother story!

[mcsap]

All alarms must have a permit ( $15 annuallly).

First two are free , after that it is $25-$50 every time. The ONLY time they dont get billed is if it is an actual alarm. And actual means evidence of a break in.

Storms, human error, power outages are all FALSE alarms.

99.6% of our alarms are false according to our last survey , yet we are dispatched to every one.

All alarms must go through a private monitiring comapny who in turn calls the 911 center.

[Valor55]

And to whomever stated the thing about catching someone off an alarm, you would be surprised. We actually usually get a few apprehensions a day I believe, maybe a week. Granted, with the number of dispatches to the number of actual people caught...well...thats a whole nother story!

In the thousands of alarms I've been to in my career I can count the number on my hands that have been actual burglaries. The only apprehensions that were made were through follow-up investigation. I don't know of any apprehensions at my agency that were onscene of an alarm. In the tens of thousands of alarms that occur daily in this country a few apprehensions is still a miniscule amount an a tiny percentage of the total.