Bad cops.

[HYHYBT]

If the robbers found an alternate way in, like say through roof access, air ducts, or even cutting a hole in the wall/window, the doors would never have been unlocked in the first place.

The police checked that the doors and windows weren't broken; they'd have noticed a hole cut in one, much less through the wall which would have been much more difficult anyway. As for the roof… sometimes possible, but vanishingly unlikely and there would have been no reason for them to LEAVE that way. They'd still have unlocked a door.

[Andara Bledin]

The police checked that the doors and windows weren't broken; they'd have noticed a hole cut in one, much less through the wall which would have been much more difficult anyway. As for the roof… sometimes possible, but vanishingly unlikely and there would have been no reason for them to LEAVE that way. They'd still have unlocked a door.

Plus, don't forget that this is a restaurant that is inside another building; it was on the ground floor of a multi-story condominium complex.

There is no direct roof access, the walls are cinderblock, and the windows are large and would be pretty obvious if one were broken.
Street view from Google Maps

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[crashhelmet]

Actually, it's kind of funny that you're in Las Vegas; all the way back in 2003, the Las Vegas Fire Department stopped responding to purely automated alarms altogether and Henderson took up the same policy for all emergency responders in 2008.

Kurtzman, though, questions what would happen if he were out of town or, in a worst-case scenario, if he and his wife were unconscious in their burning home.

In that circumstance, ADT would call the home and nobody would answer — and the Fire Department would not respond.

But that's perfectly justifiable to you, right? Because these alarms are known to be faulty?

And I doubt they can continue to do this. That area isn't so rural anymore. Developers built houses practically on top of each before the market collapsed. Let one house burn and chances are it will take the others with it, especially with the winds we have here.

Yes, it is. The alarm situation would be like them showing up and finding the car sitting, alone, without anybody near it, not them showing up and finding you there. If you cannot see the difference in those situations, I'm actually surprised you're still alive. (and no, that's not an exaggeration)

So am I. That was one of the most dangerous jobs I've ever had. As much as I hated being treated like a car thief, it was sometimes welcoming to have the police show up minutes after the owner of the car runs out waving a gun or some other weapon, threatening to kill you. Which is another reason we'd go at 2am and hope they're sleeping, which only made us look more like car thieves.

But no, it's not a straw man. The alarm situation would be the cops showing up, seeing the car is still in its parking spot, and not bothering to look inside it to see if I, or a potential thief, was sitting in it.

We're not talking about witnesses reporting crimes, which is why both of your examples are completely irrelevant.

We're talking about an automated alarm system that is known to give false alarms that had just come back online after an extended outage which is also known to make even perfect systems give false alarms.

And men are known to be raped in prison. That doesn't make it excusable. Now that was a straw man.

Does it matter how the police are notified of a possible crime? Whether it's Mr. Thoughtful Neighbor calling the police because he thinks I'm stealing someone's car, an automated alarm system, or a lady calling 911 to say someone has broken into her house, the police still have a job to do and procedures to follow.

But if none of that matters, then why did the police even bother showing up? Why not just have dispatch write it off and ignore it?

And, since it hasn't sunk in anyway, they guy was already dead. No amount of investigating and property damage in the name of safety was going to save him. His fate was sealed the moment he let that door close behind him.

Regardless of whether or not they could've save him, they still failed to do their jobs.

And that's what my beef is here. I've already stated that they probably didn't stand a chance to save the guy's life. It's the fact that they just assumed everything was fine because it passed their basic eyeball test.

But since you keep bringing this up, as if to justify their failure to do their jobs, let's get hypothetical here. Supposed there wasn't any dry ice in the cooler. Suppose he went in there to see if the cooler was working after power was restored and got locked in and then suffocated from a lack of oxygen because the police didn't bother to check out the cooler, where the panic button was pressed. Is it still justified?

Oh, yeah, and you didn't answer my question: Who pays for all of the damage incurred by police officers responding to false alarms in the course of their investigations?

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Insurance companies, the alarm company for not properly maintaining their equipment, or even the owner themselves. It would depend on the situation.

But let's just get rid of all alarm systems since they're known to be faulty. Let's get rid of 911 too. If one house burns down or a person is raped and/or killed, it's still cheaper than the cost of all of those false alarms the two systems are known to generate.

[Andara Bledin]

But that's perfectly justifiable to you, right? Because these alarms are known to be faulty?

Yes, that's perfectly justifiable to me. And it's obviously justifiable to the people who did it who also have the data that you don't seem to care to look up.

They're getting up to 99 false calls for just 1 real one. That's a massive problem that needs to be addressed, and even with the cops not responding, it's still not being addressed. Maybe a little customer outrage will get these alarm companies off their asses to deal with the problem.

It's worth noting that the places with the false alarms are the lion's share of all false alarms. Of the calls that were real, the vast majority (75%) came from places that never had a single false alarm, and most of the rest (15%) came from places that had only ever had a single false alarm. Almost all of the rest (10%) were from places that didn't even have alarms. So, it's even rarer for a place that gives false alarms to give a real one than it is for there to be a real non-alarm call in the sea of false alarms. This also proves that it's possible for an alarm system to work. The one we have in place in our building right now hasn't given a false alarm in the year we've had it; the last one would give a false alarm (faulty equipment they refused to replace) on the average of several times every single month for over a dozen years; it was enough of a problem that ADT was paying fines to emergency services for false rolls, and they still didn't care enough to fix it.

And I doubt they can continue to do this. That area isn't so rural anymore. Developers built houses practically on top of each before the market collapsed. Let one house burn and chances are it will take the others with it, especially with the winds we have here.

They already do it in far more populous areas. Plus, if the houses are on top of each other, then the false alarm is going to be corroborated by someone that is there; negating the need for a roll on the alarm alone in the first place.

But no, it's not a straw man. The alarm situation would be the cops showing up, seeing the car is still in its parking spot, and not bothering to look inside it to see if I, or a potential thief, was sitting in it.

Yes, it still is a straw man. They checked the doors and they spoke to the security on site. Both of which are far beyond the minimal effort you want to claim the cops made.

And men are known to be raped in prison. That doesn't make it excusable. Now that was a straw man.

Wow, is that completely and utterly irrelevant, or what?

This isn't some nebulous "alarms make mistakes" assertion. This is a very specific "that particular arlam system makes mistakes." I'm really starting to wonder if you've even read the article or are just making wild claims based on only part of what's been said in this thread.

Does it matter how the police are notified of a possible crime? Whether it's Mr. Thoughtful Neighbor calling the police because he thinks I'm stealing someone's car, an automated alarm system, or a lady calling 911 to say someone has broken into her house, the police still have a job to do and procedures to follow.

It aboslutely does matter.

And, because you haven't parsed it despite me having said it already, the 911 operator blew it on that last one. You're acting like the cops knew that the call had been cut off, which was not stated in the report. In fact, the report says absolutely nothing about what the police were and were not told, so making judgements about whether or not they did their jobs properly is presumptuous, at best.

But since you keep bringing this up, as if to justify their failure to do their jobs, let's get hypothetical here. Supposed there wasn't any dry ice in the cooler. Suppose he went in there to see if the cooler was working after power was restored and got locked in and then suffocated from a lack of oxygen because the police didn't bother to check out the cooler, where the panic button was pressed. Is it still justified?

Where in the article does it state that the police were informed that it was the freezer panic button that tripped the alarm?

Hell, go ahead and check out other articles while you're at it.

I'm sure it'll be filed right next to the article where the 911-rape call notes that the police were informed of the cut-off call.

Basically, there isn't a single report to support your assumption, and without that assumption, your argument falls apart.

But let's just get rid of all alarm systems since they're known to be faulty. Let's get rid of 911 too. If one house burns down or a person is raped and/or killed, it's still cheaper than the cost of all of those false alarms the two systems are known to generate.

Ah, right then. You don't want to be taken seriously.

And here I thought this was supposed to be a mature debate site.

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[Millahtyme1983]

Just gotta throw in my $0.02 here since I have experience having worked for ADT. Burglary alarms are known to be tripped quite easily, a mouse or a rat can set off the motion detectors easily and an electrical surge can cause it to just go off. Sometimes the report will tell exactly where what sensor went off, sometimes it's just a general trip. It all depends on what caused the false read and what level of service the people have. Proper procedure when one is tripped is for the cops to show up and make sure the building is still secure, which is what they did. Because they have a high tendency to register false positives the courts have ruled that the alarm in and of itself does not create enough reasonable suspicion for the police to enter the premises without permission from an owner. As far as I can tell that is what the cops that showed up to that scene believed they were responding to, there were no other signs of anything being wrong in the building. Therefore if they were to enter the premises and find nothing they would now be guilty of breaking and entering. Of course there was a dead body in the freezer and nobody would even think to charge them, but the cops had no way of knowing that at the time and had to go based on the law.

[HYHYBT]

This is why I quit using the alarm at home. The ******* glass break detectors would go off for things like closing the car door while it was still in the garage or clinking two glasses together in the sink. But it didn't call the police directly; it called the alarm company, which would then call the police unless they could 1) get an answer on the landline and 2) the person answering knew the password. In other words, verify that it was false.

Plus, don't forget that this is a restaurant that is inside another building; it was on the ground floor of a multi-story condominium complex.

Ah, that does make a difference. Though if there's anything else at all on that floor, the *interior* wall might well not be cinderblocks, making it a bit more reasonable to think someone might possibly try to get in that way.

The alarm situation would be the cops showing up, seeing the car is still in its parking spot, and not bothering to look inside it to see if I, or a potential thief, was sitting in it.

No, no, no. Because you can SEE inside a car without breaking in. The police checked the doors and windows and looked through them, seeing a dark and uninhabited interior. To make your parallel work, you have to add the assumption that, despite there being no visible sign whatsoever that anything is wrong, it's rational to think there's a car thief hiding in the trunk.

[Andara Bledin]

But it didn't call the police directly; it called the alarm company, which would then call the police unless they could 1) get an answer on the landline and 2) the person answering knew the password. In other words, verify that it was false.

My work had the same sort of issue with constant false alarms. It got to the point where we required that ADT call at least four of the numbers on the contact list before allowing any emergency services to roll. They had trouble managing even that, however, which is just one of the many reasons we no longer use them.

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