It's officially okay now to burglarize homes in Detroit

**JStone** · August-16-11, 08:58 AM

Not that response has ever been stellar, but the possibility that the police might show up in the criminals minds, may have at least sped up their departure. Now, they might as well take their time and fully clean you out.

I can't believe Godbee went public with this. This will clearly make calling 911 futile. They can always claim that it was a false alarm.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011081...text|FRONTPAGE

**corktownyuppie** · August-16-11, 09:04 AM

I respectfully disagree. When 98% of the alarms actually are false, then this will drastically improve response time to the 2% of the time that the alarms are real. Now if we could just eliminate domestic violence phone calls, we'd effectively multiply our police force by 10.

**cman710** · August-16-11, 09:23 AM

Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

I respectfully disagree. When 98% of the alarms actually are false, then this will drastically improve response time to the 2% of the time that the alarms are real. Now if we could just eliminate domestic violence phone calls, we'd effectively multiply our police force by 10.

I completely agree. While it is a sad state of affairs that the department cannot answer all of these calls, the department's resources are highly limited, and if it gets more police on the street patrolling, that will probably do more to deter crime.

**mercyme** · August-16-11, 09:35 AM

And why would you want to stop domestic violence calls?

**Gannon** · August-16-11, 09:36 AM

Jstone, I know this hit you hard, because you don't start threads here very often...

False alarms may not be a problem with YOUR system, because you made certain it was properly installed and programmed. [[yeah, I remember, another loose end...)

But for most, the alarm business used to be filled with shysters who did really shitty installations...and overall false alarms are a problem. I'd like to see his data that established the 98% figure, because I think he pulled it out of his ass.

There may be a potential new market here now. Verifying alarm installation quality...AND then verifying when they indicate a break-in. But then, Godbee better make DAMN sure his men and women get their asses there within a very short delay.

Plus, most modern alarm boxes can 'notify' more than ONE phone number...but most alarm installers don't ever talk about that...they set things up for continuing their income stream through the monthly monitoring subscriptions, which are usually just handled through one or two of the biggest firms. Many of the independents I know use Vigilante for their monitoring clearninghouse, up in Southfield. I think Guardian offers a similar service.

IF the boxes were reprogrammed to also notify the home owner's cell phone, and perhaps one or two trustworthy neighbors...or the neighborhood security patrol...taking this largely out of the hands of an increasingly impotent alarm clearinghouse system...I believe it would help things overall.

If those things don't exist...and the owner doesn't want to be bothered [[or cannot be interrupted)...then a local firm with mobile patrol for verification would be best. They should be licensed for armed response, and staffed by ex-Military and off-duty police and others who can pass the minimum muster for concealed weapons carry.

This is one of the few things I may agree with Godbee on...heh.

I'm betting Guardian, Vigilante, Brinks and the other large firms will very quickly be all over this...

Cheers,
John

**bailey** · August-16-11, 10:00 AM

In an effort to reduce the number of 911 calls that are false alarms, Detroit Police Chief Ralph Godbee Jr. announced Monday that the department no longer will dispatch officers to investigate a burglar alarm unless an occupant or the alarm company has verified an actual break-in

How exactly will they determine if it's a false alarm without responding to investigate? I travel quite a bit and have had my house alarm go off...rarely, but has happened. In one instance it was due to wind. I'd inadvertently left a window cracked. wind blew drapes, drapes set off motion alarm. In another instance. This time while in another country and time zone and not immediately reachable, my cleaning lady stopped by the house. she botched the code and set off the alarm. In neither instance would I or the alarm company be able to "verify a break in". In both instances they were during the day and my secondary people to get the call were all at work. And as this is metro detroit, they all work at least 20 minutes from the house. If I can't tell if it's a break in, and the alarm company cant, how is Godbee going to?

**Johnnny5** · August-16-11, 10:10 AM

According to the link the alarm companies will have cameras placed inside open areas of the home [[Living room hallways etc). No f-ing way I'm allowing my alarm company to have a direct video feed into my home. I'd rather just "verify" the burglary myself and spend a few moments reliving a Charles Bronson movie. =)

**Scottathew** · August-16-11, 10:26 AM

Assuming that his statistic is true [[and I believe him), I agree with this.

If 98% of alarms are false, then we need to stop responding to them. Yeah, we could do something like fine them, but then you have to have people dedicated to collecting fines, etc...

I listen to Warren's police scanner for about 3-4 hours a day and most of the time alarms [[both fire and police) are false.

Warren has the resources to respond. Detroit doesn't.

**hamtown mike** · August-16-11, 10:43 AM

This is a tough one. At first glance I said great, this will allow resources to be applied where they are actually needed. Then I started thinking about my alarm system and how this would affect me if this were to go into effect in Hamtramck.

I do not work in Hamtramck. If my alarm was to go off, and it has many times due to shoddy installation, my alarm company would call me asking if I need the police. Since most of my false alarms have taken place while I'm at work I ask that they contact the police and when I can, I leave work, occasionally beating the police to my house. [[but that's a different rant)

Now if the new system requires somebody to say yes, there is an intruder, I'm screwed. I could fib and say yes in hopes that the police would come. If it was a false alarm would I be on the hook for making a false claim? Open to a potential fine? Could the alarm companies be put on the hook for any potential fine?

**SWMAP** · August-16-11, 10:53 AM

I have a plain old hard-wired alarm system. There is a big hooting horn on the roof. No connection to any outside place. It has never gone off inadvertantly. I have to have a dependable neighbor or two who will look around. I do have some problem with the door contacts due to various constructions over the years. The contacts seem to come and go. Not sure if the emergency switch works if contacts off. The emergency is in my bedroom closet and it has come in handy for breaking up street fights once or twice!

Also keep my extra set of car keys in bedroom so can sound car alarm if warranted.

**Scottathew** · August-16-11, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by hamtown mike

If my alarm was to go off, and it has many times due to shoddy installation, my alarm company would call me asking if I need the police. Since most of my false alarms have taken place while I'm at work I ask that they contact the police and when I can, I leave work, occasionally beating the police to my house. [[but that's a different rant)

I don't want to sound mean or insulting, but you're part of the problem. You're content to have a broken alarm system that creates many false alarms.

It's not the government that should be most concerned about your house generating false alarms, it should be you. You should light a fire under the alarm company's butt to fix their system.

**Autoracks** · August-16-11, 11:04 AM

Its nice to be able to leave my door open into the evening and night time hours. I'm just a few miles from city limits. I was just thinking about that last night. I realize its not burglary but when i live on the far east side they didn't even wait for me to leave to come in. Bad bad bad experience, very fortunate nobody was seriously hurt or worse. Didn't even bother calling police. Figured if they showed up they probably wouldnt do shit. I like not having to rely on a security door. Quality of life is better in every single way now.

**ResurgetCineribus** · August-16-11, 11:13 AM

What exactly is an unverified burgular call and why were they ever responding to these?

**hamtown mike** · August-16-11, 11:15 AM

I fixed the problem years ago. After 7 visits from the alarm company, the 7th technician recognized that a motion detector aimed directly at a radiator was a big no no the moment he walked in the door.

**corktownyuppie** · August-16-11, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by mercyme

And why would you want to stop domestic violence calls?

Let me clarify. I don't want to stop domestic violence calls, I want to stop domestic violence. A cop once told me that more than half the calls they respond to are domestic violence-related. The tragedy here is that these are not crimes taking place between a stranger and a victim...or burglary or a carjacking. These are usually situations involving people who know each other and should, theoretically, care about each other.

If we could just get the people who care about each other not to kill each other, then cops could spend their time preventing people being victimized by strangers.

**HistoryNotHisStory** · August-16-11, 11:42 AM

Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

I respectfully disagree. When 98% of the alarms actually are false, then this will drastically improve response time to the 2% of the time that the alarms are real. Now if we could just eliminate domestic violence phone calls, we'd effectively multiply our police force by 10.

Detroit Police hardly responds to any calls.

However, an audible alarm is a clear signal to the criminals that they will likely get caught or that the police is on the way. By informing criminals in Detroit that the police will not arrive, they will take their time.

Chief Godbee did not have to make it public. He should have just implemented the program quietly.

**professorscott** · August-16-11, 12:01 PM

This is a silly discussion. The headline in the papers ought to have been "Chief finally admitting that DPD does not, and has not for years, responded to burglar alarms nor any other notification of burglaries".

By the way, the burglars have known about this for as long as I have. My record is 2 burglaries, 2 car thefts and one car break-in, with zero police response in each case. [[Full disclosure: I was victim, not perp.)

After car theft #1, desk sergeant at #12 told me I could come in for a copy of the report. My response was, "how?"

**DetroitHabitater** · August-16-11, 01:23 PM

98% is definitely an Ass-pulled number. WTF DPD? Most alarm companies call the owner to verify it isn't a false alarm first. In the 4 years i've had my alarm system i've never had a false call into the police. Why should I suffer?

Don't get me wrong. I've always known that DPD does nothing, It's just now they've made a public statement to the criminals saying they are dedicated to doing nothing.

My neighbor recently had a REAL alarm event and was burglarized, the police rolled by and said 'everything looked normal' not even getting out of their vehicle.

They had also ready the court system to learn how to deal with acts of vigilantism then too.

-dh

**SWMAP** · August-16-11, 03:54 PM

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported this story earlier this month. Emphasis mine.

"False alarms from home security systems are much more prevalent than you might imagine. The New York Times estimates that as many as 97 percent of cases where police are dispatched to the scene of a burglary turn out to be false alarms. This means that less than 5 percent of the time alarms are actually set off by burglars or intruders.
The scope of the problem
False alarms are not only a headache for you and your neighbors, they are also extremely costly to your local government. Every time a false alarm goes off, local governments must improperly allocate tax dollars, time and resources. As an example, the Seattle police department recently estimated it spends about $1 million every year responding to false alarms. This is a huge waste of money and resources, and a massive misuse of firefighters' and police efforts.
In an effort to crack down on this problem, many cities around the country have implemented false alarm programs. These programs aim to educate citizens and reduce the occurrence of false alarms. Other cities have implemented fines for repeat false alarm offenders, which usually range from $200 to $500."

lilpup · August-16-11, 05:24 PM

My dad's employer had a live-monitored alarm system. They would call the company when they locked up for the night then the company would *listen* for unusual noise as well as monitor the various motion/door/window sensors. If they got a sensor alarm or unusual noise they'd call a company rep but if they got a sensor alarm along with noise they'd call the police first.

**DetroitHabitater** · August-16-11, 06:04 PM

Does anyone have any experience with of knowing of a burglary solved after the fact? In all my time here i know plenty of people who have been broken into and zero of those have been solved.

So now that police won't catch people in the act, they won't catch anyone at all ever?

People turned to alarm systems because policing was ineffective. What other city services am i going to have to personally contract for myself? Is taking my garbage to the dump myself the last step to a completely uninvolved city?

lilpup · August-16-11, 06:11 PM

Think about that - if you turned to an alarm service because you knew policing was ineffective, what are you actually getting from the alarm service?

**DetroitHabitater** · August-16-11, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by lilpup

Think about that - if you turned to an alarm service because you knew policing was ineffective, what are you actually getting from the alarm service?

I mean policing as in cops 'walking the beat' and on drive patrols looking for suspicious acts before crimes happen, you know, things that other cities do.

I made it easy for them, so when my alarm goes off, people who aren't supposed to be in my house are in it. All they have to do is show up, but apparently they can't do that anymore.

**Zacha341** · August-16-11, 06:38 PM

So are 'home invasions' next to be 'included' in this new RATIONING!???

This is not good.

There's a rash of break-ins occurring in the U of D the Outerdrive and Curtis area.

Very serious decisions are going to have to be made by many who choose to stay the city of Detroit.

Lines in the sand are being drawn. And announced!

**DetroitPlanner** · August-16-11, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

I respectfully disagree. When 98% of the alarms actually are false, then this will drastically improve response time to the 2% of the time that the alarms are real. Now if we could just eliminate domestic violence phone calls, we'd effectively multiply our police force by 10.

My alarm only went off once in 18 years. It was because someone kicked in my side door. Two other times the alarm never went off. The crafty burgalars can get around the alarm system.