09/24/05  My Response to Verified Response

The other night at a community meeting, I received the above hand out from a police officer in support of Verified Response. It contains '5 Facts' from the police.

It's titled:  Why Verified Response is good for Dallas residents and bad for criminals.

I don't understand how NOT responding to alarms is "bad for criminals".  Reducing the penalty for burglary of a motor vehicle from a felony to a misdemeanor has caused BMV's to skyrocket. When the criminals know there will be no police response to an alarm we will see residential burglaries do the same.

Fact 1:   Anytime a citizen personally activates an alarm, such as a panic alarm or a hold-up alarm, the police will respond.

Thank god for small miracles.  

Fact 2:   Currently, responding to false alarms takes the police away from their primary job of crime fighting. There were 62,000 alarm calls in 2004, 97% were false alarms. These false alarms wasted 47,000 police officer hours, the equivalent of 41 officers.

The police are telling you 3% of real burglaries, 1,860, throughout Dallas are of no concern to them. If verified response passes, there will be over 5 real burglaries every day in Dallas that will NOT be responded to until 'verified'. This number doesn't even take into account the number of burglaries perpetrated on homes with no alarm.

Fact 3:  In other cities with Verified Response, private security provides much quicker response time to alarm calls. If these trained and qualified personnel visually verify that a crime has been committed, Dallas Police will respond as a high priority call.

What a joke! In other words, crime fighting needs to go private in Dallas if you want quick response. If Verified Response is passed, the cost to alarm companies to provide Verified Response will be passed along to Dallas citizens. Some alarm companies will not provide verified response, and will terminate service in the Dallas.

Fact 4:  In other cities with Verified Response, not responding to alarm calls has decreased response time by officers to more critical calls.?

I don?t know what could be more critical than a criminal invading your home, and stealing family heirlooms such as jewelry, furniture, art, etc. Not to mention many burglars vandalize the home.  

Fact 5:  Residents will no longer pay for alarm permits from the City of Dallas.

The City of Dallas will lose almost $4 million dollars in revenue collected from these alarm permits. In fact, the main reason the City started the permit process was to pay for the false alarms.

Yes, we have lots of false alarms in a big city like Dallas. As a citizen, I like the fact that the police must come into the neighborhood to check out an alarm. It?s apparently about the only way our neighborhoods get any patrol.

The police say by not responding to alarms we?ll have the equivalent of 41 more officers. I don?t buy those statistics.  Even if true, we need more than 41 new officers, we need 300-500.

Lastly, on the back of this handout, the Dallas Commission on Productivity & Innovation takes credit for the flier. Just who is the "Dallas Commission on Productivity & Innovation"?  Their office is listed as 1500 Marilla, 2BN. That?s City Hall, folks.

Are our tax dollars going towards marketing materials for this proposed change in public safety?

Do they pay any rent for their office at City Hall?
 

Gary Turner, Editor/Publisher
Crime and Politics