911: “911. Please state the nature of your emergency.”
Mom: “It’s my son! He was hit badly by terrorists, blood splatters were thrown all over the place and his health is really low!”
911: “Where are you presently located?”
Mom: “The airport.”
911: “Which airport?”
Mom: “The one in level 2 mission 1.”
911: “I’m sorry??”
Mom: “You know, the second stage with the terrorists in the airport.”
911: “…”
Mom: “Hello?”
911: “Ma’am, is your son playing a game?”
Mom: “Yes.”
911: “Sigh. facepalm”
I’d like to see a document with factual data and analysis, determining exactly how this costs the police department millions of dollars.
It sounds to me like a load of bull.
I agree it is wasted time that the police could be (and should, yet in reality they usually rarely are) using to perform their duty more effectively and productively.
However, I disagree to incurred costs and to these rising up to the millions.
The Police Department is a branch of Municipal Authority, sanctioned by the Government. Paid for by Residents’ Taxes.
The man-power is already being paid for. It is necessary to be maintained and is being maintained regardless of day-to-day activity volume (naturally, if there is a significant decrease in volume that is noticeable upon an annual sheet then a reduction in the overall workforce would occur, which is irrelevant to the mundane maintenance of the workforce).
The equipment and subsequent fees incurred shall be incurred irrelevant. The policemen cannot perform their duty without the proper equipment.
The gas the police-car uses to get to the facility that triggered the false alarm? It would be used regardless. Alternatively, they would be doing a routine patrol drive, mobilize to another location of activity or otherwise.
Throughout the linked document, I find nothing short but preposterous, if not downright insidious (“a consecutive 365 day period” - clever girl), statements.
The very notion of requiring a permit to install and operate an alarm inside one’s own house is rather outrageous (and I may suspect, given a sufficiently savvy and salty lawyer, may even be proven either unconstitutional to the USA or violates certain privacy regulations) and reeks of a bureaucratically attempted enforcement of a form of tax or otherwise a measure that was not institutionalized via due process rather introduced indirectly as to bypass proper scrutiny which would’ve likely invalidated it.
Ah, I stand corrected then.
If it calls the police directly, then definitely, I agree as that’s essentially licensing their services to be provided in a private manner.
I’d also agree to a flat bill-per-call, regardless of whether or not a burglary actually took place, as, again, it’s a service rendered.
I was thinking of police turning up to handle regular alarms, didn’t occur to me that you yahoos actually go wiring your alarms to the PD, though at retrospective I’ve known of such to take place in the USA before from TV shows or otherwise, so I should’ve thought of it. My bad.
Well, it’s against the law in most places to file a false police report, so I don’t see it being that unusual that there’s a fine in this case. The other problem with false alarms is that the police have to go there and investigate, taking time away from real emergencies – and there isn’t an inexhaustible supply of police officers.
49,158/2080 worked hours per 52 weeks = 23.63~/hour
Now let’s see what it really costs to add a single police officer on duty at any given moment (24 hours a day):
$23.63 * 24 *365 = $206,998.80 (we’ll round it off 20 $207k considering there were some more decimal points in the hourly wage).
So a single extra police officer on duty costs $207k, on the average. The Phoenix Police Department apparently has more than 3500 officers and 700 support personnel. A week has 168 hours, and 40 is nearly a quarter of that. For easy math, let’s say it is and that the average staffing of officers is around 875 at any point in time.
Out of that, some people will be detectives (not required for false alarms) while others will be in leadership posititions (likewise). However, even if we’re being overly cautious and put the total number of active patrolmen at a low number of 500, just a 1% increase in patrol strength is going to cost the city $1+ million (5 * $207k).
I could see the argument that in order to maintain the same level of coverage, anywhere from 2% to 4% additional patrolmen are needed to cover for the false alarms (I believe the incidence of false alarms is higher, but that they wouldn’t take nearly as long to investigate once their nature becomes apparent).
In Israel that whole private house alarm system doesn’t actually go to the police, there are private security companies which get the call when the alarm goes off for whatever reason and they call the homeowner immediately, or if he’s not available they send a patrol car to check things out.
Even though I have no idea what kind of deal they work out with the police in case they do find somebody rummaging in the place, they do have sidearms.
I can’t believe they responded to that call. If anything, they should’ve arrested the mother for misusing 911 (it’s been done on lesser grounds http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13862689/ ). Now, if the kid had a history of violence and conduct disorder, that would be slightly different, but they don’t say that in the article.
Some areas have policies that REQUIRE that a squad car is sent to any address that makes a 911 call.
I sometimes work in VOIP and I have to call 911 as part of an install process to verify that it shows the correct address, etc… Even after the operator acknowledges it’s no emergency and verifies everything, they still dispatch a cop.
I see. So I suppose what they say is that they call off-duty reserves to go check these outs, therefore paying overtime?
I’d argue then that they should have those already on patrol attend to the matter.
And if they really need to attend to that high a number of alarm cases, and since we are talking about a, seemingly, private-sector service here, then they should increase the regularly retained workforce in a manner that reflects their average need to cover for those cases.
The salary for that extra force would come from the permits and call-bills as would be expected from a private service provider (AKA any other business).
Ha Ha! Good catch.
I’m all for Dromi’s Law being exercised. >D
Lest we deteriorate to the USA’s deprived state of ‘Burglar suing homeowner for hurting him while intruding his burglary attempt’.
IIRC there is a monthly charge just to keep it on the grid… maybe it works differently where I live. Contacting whoever installed the alarm would be a good start, tell them you just want it for intimidation and that false alarms have been causing you trouble with the police.
I totally agree with everything else you posted… I don’t know why people think that as soon as the alarm goes off a SWAT team will rappel into their house… and a silent alarm is just begging to get into a confrontation with the criminal/criminal getting into a confrontation with the police in your house. You want him out pronto and you shouldn’t care if he grabs a few things, the damage from a fight or to your life is higher priority.
