4 Police Departments Call Before Answering Alarm, Local Poll Shows

Only four Orange County police departments--including Costa Mesa--respond to armed robbery alarms with a phone call that reaches the scene of the crime before police officers do, a Times survey shows.

Most of the county’s other police agencies dispatch officers to the scene before making such a call, citing concerns for the safety of police and citizens.

The issue surfaced this week, when a former liquor store clerk sued the Costa Mesa Police Department because the agency had called his store during a Nov. 24 armed robbery instead of first sending police officers.

Shot in Back

According to the suit, the bandit answered the telephone at Sir Charles Liquor Store on Bristol Street, told police nothing was wrong and then shot Elias Aoun, 26, in the back.

“I thought definitely the police would show up,” Aoun said Wednesday. “But when the call came . . . the attitude of those people (bandits) changed from just trying to get the money and scare me, to nervousness, to taking cover behind me, taking me in the back room and shooting me.”

Despite the incident, spokesmen from Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, La Habra and Newport Beach police departments said this week that they found nothing unusual or unwise with their immediate-call-back policies.

When a silent alarm goes off signaling an armed robbery, “on businesses that are open we have call-back procedures,” said Costa Mesa Police Chief Roger Neth. “This is because well over 90% of our armed robbery calls are false alarms. Very few of them are legitimate.”

In the Costa Mesa Police Department, silent alarm calls go to the communications center, Neth said. Dispatchers then contact police units with the information by radio and immediately call the scene of the robbery.

“Our policy does not say they shall call back before or after the officers get there, just that they shall call back,” Neth said. “I don’t think it would make any difference if the officer was at the scene or not. If the suspect was inside, he would probably answer the phone anyway. I don’t see how it has any real bearing.”

However, Nick O’Malley, Aoun’s attorney, said such a policy is unconscionable.

“They (police) call to see if everything’s OK, so they don’t have units running, so they save money,” O’Malley said. “The psychology of a person with a handgun who is robbing a store is going to be adverse if someone calls during a robbery because of a silent alarm. . . . He’s going to shoot.”

Most Send Officers

While Orange County police agencies report that between 90% and 99% of all silent alarms are false alarms, most dispatch officers to the scene before making any phone calls.

Of the county’s 23 separate police departments, for example, 16 send two or more police cars immediately upon being alerted by a silent alarm. In these cities, the bank or store that is being robbed is called only after officers arrive at the scene and request that such a call be made.

The departments with such policies are Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Orange, Laguna Beach, Los Alamitos, Placentia, San Clemente, Santa Ana, Seal Beach, Tustin and Westminster.

Two departments--Anaheim and La Palma--respond to alarms by simply sending two or more police cars to the scene. Department policy in these two cities mandates that no calls should be made to the crime scene.

The Stanton Police Department refused to comment on its policy. A Sheriff’s Department spokesman did not return telephone calls.

According to Deputy Atty. Gen. Roger Venturi, there is no state law that regulates the way police departments respond to robbery alarms. Most of these regulations are made locally by the police departments themselves or city councils.

Action Discretionary

“They (police departments) are required to enforce the law, but that’s all the California Penal Code says,” Venturi said. “How you dispatch your men or use them is a discretionary factor.”

The only city ordinances that regulate the use of silent armed robbery alarms and burglar alarms in Orange County are those that levy fines if the owners of these devices have too many false alarms.

In Anaheim, for example, Chief Jimmie Kennedy said businesses are allowed three false alarms. After the third, they are charged $50 per false alarm. No charge is levied if the alarm is real.

Despite the county’s high rate of false alarms, spokesmen from most police departments said that businesses should not be called immediately when their silent alarms are activated. They explained that the safety of police officers and the community is more important than the money lost by police responding when there is no robbery.

Response to Every Call

“The reason you don’t call first is that there are no officers there to contain the building and observe what’s going on,” said Officer Lance Ishmael of the Laguna Beach Police Department. “It’s kind of futile to call first. Ninety percent of our alarm calls are false alarms, but they’re all handled as though they’re for real.”

La Palma Police Lt. David Barr added: “It’s not our policy to call because of the type thing that looks like it happened in Cost Mesa. We want to avoid that type of situation. . . . We’ve found it’s better to respond with units to every call.”

In Buena Park, at least 98% of all activated silent alarms are false, said Lt. Dick Hafdahl.

“We could make a call first, and the manager would say, ‘Yes, we’re being robbed, and he just went out the front door,’ ” Hafdahl said. “We won’t have anyone there. It would seem logical that we’d be wasting time. I can’t see any advantage of calling ahead of time.”

However, the cities that do have call-first policies staunchly defend them.

Defense of Calls

Newport Beach Lt. Jim Carson said that his department requires that a call be made when--or just before--police arrive at the scene of the alarm.

“We try to wait until we’re actually in sight of the location to make the call,” Carson said. “This preserves the safety of the officer and the people involved.”

Newport Beach dispatchers ask the business managers if everything is fine. Then the managers are asked to describe their attire and walk outside the establishment to talk to police. The description is radioed to the officers.

“This preserves the safety of the officers and people involved,” Carson said. “The system has been very effective. We don’t contemplate any changes.”

In La Habra, Police Capt. Mike Burch said that, to his knowledge, no suspect has ever picked up the telephone when the department has called in response to a silent alarm.

No Easy Answers

And in Fountain Valley, even though his department has a call-as-soon-as-possible policy, Sgt. Larry Griswold acknowledges that there is no easy answer, no automatic right thing to do when silent alarms go off.

“It’s a tough circumstance,” Griswold said. “In this case (Aoun’s) it went wrong for Costa Mesa. We get a lot of circumstances where there is no answer when we call. That’s the assumed reply when a suspect is there. It’s another suspicious circumstance.

“And we still say it’s better for the safety of the officers and the public and for the apprehension of the suspect” to call first.