Funny Story

[peacefuljeffrey]

Great story. Just my plug nickle but I think I would send a note to his chief about his professionalism. I'm guessing they rarely get positive feedback

While I do think that the comment was humorous, I would have preferred to read that after that, the cop took the business-clearing a bit more seriously than to continue to crack jokes, and to clear the premises with his gun holstered.

Was there not a dual alarm here? Motion and door?

Was a cause for the alarm ever determined? I would not have been so nonchalant, unless there was some strong reason to believe that any B&E suspect was already long-gone.

I would not call the cop's response "professional," based on the limited description here.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[peacefuljeffrey]

Could you imagine the harassment an officer would take if he was clearing a building and the building owner got the shot off before the officer did. Not saying there is anything wrong with it but I would imagine the locker room antics would be great if someone else took the bad guy out with the cop sitting there with his hands on his waist.

Well, what if the cop brought the owner along to clear the premises and the owner GOT SHOT?

Frankly, I'm surprised that department policy does not forbid bringing a non-police-officer on such a task.

Sixto said that it peeves him when the owner won't come out; but who can blame them? They're not deputized; they will be told not to draw their own weapon; and they're not trained in room-clearing tactics, generally. How can you expect them to want to go room-to-room with you? If they end up shooting someone, is the department's lawyer going to defend them for free? If they get shot, can the cop cure their trauma or bring them back to life?

Frankly, I personally would want to be in on the excitement, and possibly be there to see a badguy who was burglarizing my place get nabbed, but I can see why many would not want to go, and I can't blame them, the way Sixto does.

[skippythenurse]

Most of the officers I have met in Missouri City, Tx are pretty serious, uptight guys. But then again, I don't usually hang around long enough to have a conversation. The HPD officer that took me downtown was pretty cool once I showed that I was very cooperative. Heck, he told the guy at the central jail to make sure he took care of me.

[peacefuljeffrey]

Are you saying you were being arrested? What was that all about?

[skippythenurse]

Are you saying you were being arrested? What was that all about?

Sorry, this was years ago (i think '04) for a suspended license that was dismissed later on. The officer had to do what he had to do. So I cooperated. Don't worry, I mentioned it on my application for my CHL, or else I wouldn't get the CHL.

[soundwave]

peacefuljeffrey, the idea of having the responsible person (aka the R/P) respond to alarms is because the LEO will have no idea if anything was taken or disturbed unless the criminal is really sloppy. The R/P works there for 8+ hours, they should know if anything is out of place or missing. That's why the LEO would prefer that the R/P walk through the place with them.

As far as cracking jokes, if you knew how many of these alarms are due to hiccups in the connection to the alarm company, animals or wind moving things in the path of the sensors or a whole host of other things that are not even remotely criminal activity you would see why the situation would be taken lightly. Granted, everyone should take such situations seriously at all times because we never know if this is "the one" but we're human and complacency happens. I have worked at my department for years and only once was it actually a burglary.

And if you ever become the R/P of some property and the LEO actually tells you not to use any defensive measures should the need arise, politely decline entering with them. Sometimes you will find a LEO who really does think they can save the day and save you from anything popping up in the shadows but the ones that are not kings of their own delusional cerebral hemisphere will never tell you that. Two reasons: 1) they know that even if they are there, there is no guarantee that you will leave unharmed; 2) legally they can't order you to not defend yourself unless that defense is going to be used against them. They require you to disarm, they become responsible for your personal security, GG or BG. (Wish that worked with those evil little "no weapons" signs but nobody's pushed the issue in court yet.)

Finally, I doubt you would need a lawyer of any kind -- even a departmental lawyer (aka the district/county/city attorney) -- to defend you if you justifiably defended your life. Remember that LEOs must charge you with a crime first before the prosecutor even sees it. Even better, it goes to court, your star witness is a LEO that was actually there and has experience being cross examined. Imagine the defense trying to argue why you believed there was a need for deadly force when you know that in such a situation the LEO squeezed off a few rounds themselves. See them try to push that one. ;O)

Cheers.

[goldshellback]

Sometimes JSO can be pretty funny..........sounds like a stright-foward, take care of business LEO.

[mcp1810]

Sort of going along with what soundwave was saying, most alarms are false alarms. The security companies of course don't want you to know that. In my county we were handling in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand alarm calls per year. Frequently a double trip like the one described would be an interior door not secured properly and when the HVAC kicked on the door would move just a little bit. Eventually the bolt would slip to the edge of the jamb and then the door would swing open and set off the motion sensor. It got so bad we had to create a false alarm reduction unit and started fining people if they had too many false alarms. After that, if the alarm was not registered with us, or the alarm company was not licensed to do business in the county we would not respond to their burglar alarms unless there was a key holder on site. Rarely would we ever catch anybody inside unless it was a silent alarm. Most of the alarms were audible so the bad guy knew they set it off, and by the time the alarm company went through their call list, and then notified us, it was usually five minutes before it even got to a dispatcher. Of course the one way a dispatcher could guarantee an alarm call was a good burglary was to hold the call for half an hour without getting permission from the sergeant!

[peacefuljeffrey]

I begin to understand why some municipalities have begun trying to charge for service when they have to respond to a false alarm, be it burglar or fire. That cost must mount pretty quickly!

[JD]

I can only ditto Soundwave's post, I was the one who got called every time we had an alarm, I lived about 3 miles from the shop, there were a couple of times I beat the PD to the shop, if I pulled in and there was no squad car, I'd wait at the driveway of the building, with the lights shining on the front of the office, the officer would check windows and doors, if all looked ok, I would accompany the officer in and turn off the alarm, and give the R/O the floor plan of the office, nooks, crannies, door ways etc, etc.

After he'd do his check I would go in and do a walk through with him to see if anything was missing.

For us it was squirrels / chipmunks / mice / 1 REALLY BIG RAT getting in the building somehow. Eventually after so many false alarms, we turned off the motion detectors and just used the door/window alarms.

We had one alarm with the door, it wasn't properly secured and the wind managed to open it just right.


The basic rule of thumb is that in most cases, if the alarm goes off with no sign of forced entry, it's either a false alarm, OR the person responding to the alarm from the company is the guy who's robbing it.

If there were signs of forced entry I'm pretty sure the responding officer would have taken things much more seriously.

On a side note*

Everyone needs to realize that you can't get Andy Griffith to respond to any call you're involved in, and then get angry when he ends up on another call where you want Joe Friday. It just doesn't work like that.

After all the "This cop was a jerk" type threads, now we have them getting criticized for being too nice and too casual.

[AutoFan]

Don't forget to add thunder and/or lightning to your list of triggers for false alarms.

[rabywk]

The community already pays the salaries of the LEOs responding to false alarms. They shouldn't have to pay any more.

I deal with idiots on the phone everyday that are always saying the problems are caused by us. Well after troubleshooting everything we find that 95% of the time the problem is in their equipment. Now should the government start charging an Idiot fee to these users????? By the way these idiots are the ones that are paying my salary and I look at it as job security!

[mcp1810]

The community already pays the salaries of the LEOs responding to false alarms. They shouldn't have to pay any more.

Yes, the community does pay the salaries of the officers. That includes the members of the community that are having their calls for service delayed because officers are tied up on false alarms. Is that fair? I like the way it is done in parts of Kalifornia, the alarm company responds to the alarm and calls the police if there is evidence of an actual crime.

[LongRider]

Was the responding officer an experienced (multiple year Street Cop) LEO or less-experienced? And was the continued humor triggered as a defense to a tense situation?

I ask because I've been told by close friends that when things get real uh, well...edgy, I become quietly hilarious! It's just always been my natural way of staying awake, aware & alive. It has quieted the urgency of the situation, making the best tactics for resolution easier to consider.

Same here. My wife says she knows I am hurt if I am laughing. For instance I stubbed my toe on a 2X4 and started laughing, she jumped up yelling OMG what's wrong? Later guests asked how she knew I was hurt, they had thought I just stubbed my toes, she said because he (I) was laughing. There was a ten penny nail sticking out of the 2X4 it went in under my big toe nail and came out of top of my foot. Back in the day I got the rep for being psycho because in the midst of battle I would be laughing and appeared aroused. Bothered me for a very long time until I learned neither responce is very uncommon.