City Agencies, LAPD Called on False Alarms

While tougher fines have helped cut false burglar-alarm calls to the LAPD by 8%, one group of alarm owners continues to have an excessive number of bad calls: Los Angeles city agencies, including the Police Department itself.

City departments were responsible for at least 541 false alarms last year, including 97 by the Los Angeles Police Department.

Until now, city agencies have not faced financial penalties for false alarms, but that could change after Monday’s report.

The Police Commission’s executive director and members of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee called for city departments to be fined for excessive false alarms as an incentive to deal with the problem.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, the committee chairwoman, said false alarms take police officers away from real crime, and called it unacceptable that the city contributes to the problem.

“It’s outrageous,” Chick said.

Electronic burglar alarms account for about 17% of all calls for police help, and about 98% of electronic burglar alarms responded to by the LAPD have traditionally been false calls, wasting the equivalent of about 41 officers’ entire work year.

False alarms are often triggered by faulty alarm equipment, mistakes by employees, wind and animals that can trigger the electronic devices, officials say.

The Los Angeles City Council decided four years ago to get tough on the false calls, authorizing more enforcement staff and reducing from three to two the number of false alarms a business can have in a year before facing an $80 fine.

The results have been good, said Joe Gunn, executive director of the Police Commission.

The number of false alarms has declined from 148,000 in 1995 to 129,000 last year. For the first three months of this year, false alarms were down 8% compared with the same period last year.

“We are making great strides,” Gunn told the council panel, noting the decline in false alarms has occurred even as the number of businesses with alarm permits has increased.

Revenue from fines has increased from about $2.5 million to about $4 million.

But city agencies don’t face fines.

“City departments are unique because they don’t pay anything,” Gunn said. “There is no punishment.”

Responded Chick, “We have to change that.”

The 10 city buildings with the most false alarms would have faced $41,000 in fines last year, but the fines were waived.

Under Gunn’s proposal, departments would have to pay the fines to the enforcement division, therefore losing that money from their budgets.

The worst offender last year was a Public Works Department street maintenance yard on Wilton Place with 206 false alarms that would have resulted in $16,000 in fines.

Third worst was the LAPD’s Rampart Division detective office on Union Street, which triggered 66 false alarms last year.

“It’s embarrassing,” said LAPD Lt. Ronald Marbrey, who is in charge of the enforcement program.

He said many of the LAPD’s false alarms involve the large number of storefront police substations that the department has opened in recent years.