Verified Alarm Policy
Police Commission Staff Recommendation

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INTRADEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE

June 2, 2003
1.0

Honorable Members:

It is recommended that the Board approve this report and direct the Chief of Police to implement a Verified Alarm Policy effective July 1, 2003, subject to the revisions recommended in this report.

On April 9, 2002, the Board adopted a Verified Response Alarm policy for the Los Angeles Police Department. On January 7, 2003, the Department submitted a draft Special Order to implement that policy. At the request of the City Council, implementation of the Verified Response policy was postponed until a Council-formed Burglary Alarm Task Force (Task Force) could provide its recommendations on this policy change. On April 22, 2003, the City Council approved the Task Force’s recommendations and forwarded their report to the Commission. Attached is a staff report analyzing each of those recommendations. Essentially, several of those recommendations will be studied further while others are contingent upon revisions to the Alarm Ordinance, state law or self-regulation by the alarm industry. However, the recommendation that most significantly alters the Commission’s original policy decision is the proposal to require alarm verification only after three false alarm occurrences at the same location within a 12-month period. This recommendation is extremely problematic in that it would create a constantly changing two-tiered dispatch policy raising serious City liability concerns if calls are not dispatched accurately using the changing two-variable—three false alarms; 12-month period—dispatch policy. Those concerns notwithstanding, the Task Force recognized that the core issue underpinning their substantive recommendations is the City knowing the identity and location of all alarm subscribers in the City. The Office of the Chief Legislative Analyst has been asked to seek this information from the alarm industry and that Office will be prepared to report the results of its efforts to the Commission when this matter is heard on June 17, 2003.

In discussion with Board President Rick Caruso, staff was asked to explore a way of making field officers aware of alarm activations. In addition to being an officer-safety issue, officers who were available could use their discretion in responding to an alarm. President Caruso also expressed concern that officers at the Area level, particularly detectives and Senior Lead Officers, should have the ability to designate particular locations for police response based upon exigent circumstances. Examples of those exigent circumstances would include burglary patterns occurring in certain communities, and individuals such as witness to or victims of a crime whose safety could be enhanced by dispatching a unit to an alarm activation at their residence or business. Staff has explored these concerns with the Department and believes it has found a viable alternative. That alternative would require that the Department accept unverified alarm activations into its Communications center and dispatch those calls as a “broadcast and file” radio call. Under that system, unverified burglary calls would be broadcast, but filed if a unit did not accept the call within a few minutes. Additionally, this system would allow officers to enter a particular location into the Communications Automated Dispatch (CAD) system’s “special location” file, which would notify the dispatcher to dispatch a unit for the reasons indicated. This is a reasonable enhancement to the verified alarm policy and staff recommends that the Board adopt this modification.

Lieutenant Debra Kirk and I are available to provide any additional information the Board may require.

Respectfully,

Original signed by:

DANIEL R. KOENIG, Executive Director
Board of Police Commissioners

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