LAPD Investigates Officers Over False Alarm Data : Police: A burglar alarm company complains about information given to the City Council, which is considering a crackdown on bogus calls.

Following a complaint by a burglar alarm company, the Los Angeles Police Department has launched an Internal Affairs investigation into allegations that police have knowingly used bogus data to persuade the City Council to adopt a law that clamps down on false alarm calls.

According to city and alarm industry officials, the information in dispute is contained in a police study that says the LAPD spent $8.5 million last year in service hours responding to the 161,000 security alarm calls. During the same period, the police study said the city collected about $5.7 million in revenues from alarm system permits and false alarm fines, leaving a deficit of $2.8 million.

Detectives Richard Rudell and Jack Hosford, the two officers who have gathered information on the false alarm problem for the council, confirmed Monday that LAPD officials had notified them of the investigation. They said their information came from the department’s fiscal operations division. “I can only report what I’m told,” Hosford said. They dismissed the allegations, saying their data are accurate.

Mark Siegel, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Burglar and Fire Alarm Assn., said he does not know which burglar alarm company made the complaint that triggered the investigation. The association is not accusing police of wrongdoing, he said, but is seeking more information on how the data was assembled.

Under the police-backed ordinance proposed by Councilman Marvin Braude, police would not respond to automated burglar alarm calls unless a break-in is verified by a building occupant, the alarm company, a security guard or video surveillance cameras.

Rudell called the allegations “a political thing” raised by the burglar alarm industry to delay the adoption of an ordinance that could increase the cost of owning an alarm system in the city because of equipment or personnel needed to verify break-ins.

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The dispute is the latest twist in an increasingly heated battle between police, who complain that responding to false alarms takes them away from crime fighting, and the alarm industry, which fears that the proposed law can hurt business.

Police say tough laws are needed because 95% of the 161,000 alarm calls made last year in Los Angeles were false and accounted for 18% of all police service calls.

The Internal Affairs investigation was brought to light at a Monday meeting of the council’s Public Safety Committee when Councilwoman Laura Chick asked police and city officials to confirm the rumors of an investigation. An attorney for the city told Chick that such matters could not be discussed in public.

Rudell and Hosford said they do not know who made the complaint or what the specific allegations are. All they know, the detectives said, is that they are accused of distributing inaccurate information on the false alarm problem.

Capt. Eric Lillo of the department’s Internal Affairs division confirmed that his unit was investigating “a call, perhaps a letter” complaining about the information that police have distributed to the City Council.

But Lillo added that as a matter of practice, Internal Affairs investigates all complaints against police officers. “It doesn’t mean that the department concludes that the allegations are correct,” he said.

Chick made it clear during Monday’s meeting that she believes that the detectives have tried to provide accurate data. She accused alarm company officials of making the complaint to slow the city’s efforts to reduce the number of false alarm calls.

“This whole complaint issue is further evidence that they are not willing to work with us,” she said.

The entire City Council will consider the ordinance next week.