City Agencies Adding to False Burglar Alarm Problems

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 LAPD, largely from defective burglar alarms, or those triggered by wind or animals.

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 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 she called it unacceptable that the city contributes to the problem.

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 City Council decided four years ago to get tough on such 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.

Joe Gunn, the executive director of the Police Commission, said 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 are down 8% compared with the same period last year.

But city agencies don’t face fines.

The 10 worst city buildings for 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 last year 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.