From the LAPD...
There has been a series of Residential Burglaries developing in the Westside communities. The suspects typically knock or ring the doorbell to verify if anyone is home. When there is no answer, the suspects enter the side or rear of the residence and force entry typically by smashing the window or door glass to gain entry. Suspects are targeting the master bed and bath as well as other areas of the home and removing Jewelry, cash, small valuables and small electronics.
Immediate Detection! Is key to prevention and apprehension. The Los Angeles Police Department recommends the following tips to help secure your home and harden the target:
· SURVEILLANCE/SECURITY CAMERAS: Web based surveillance and doorbell camera systems will allow homeowners to view and monitor activity from any smartphone or computer which are motion sensor activated and will alert your device when there is activity. They will also lend valuable information and clues to the investigation.
· ALARMS: Ensure that security alarms are in good working order and set when not at home whether leaving for 10 minutes or 10 hours. Accessible upstairs doors & windows should have alarm sensors and upstairs rooms should have motion sensors to include the master bedroom.
· ALARM RESPONSE: Consider a private patrol alarm response to enhance your current alarm and security system. In many cases private patrols are already contracted in many neighborhoods or associations.
· MOTION SENSOR LIGHTING: Install motion sensor lighting around your home to illuminate normally dark areas around the home. This will also alert residents to outside activity around the home when motion lights are activated.
· GATES: Ensure that all gates and access points to the side or rear of the residence are locked and secured.
· DOOR AND WINDOW LOCKS: Ensure that all doors and windows are locked and secured with sturdy secured locks and that there are second locking mechanisms securing all doors and windows as a second line of defense.
· MAKE IT LOOK LIKE YOU’RE HOME…Even when you’re not.
· NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: Monitor suspicious activities in your neighborhood and alert your neighbors. Should the activity escalate to a crime about to occur, crime in progress or crime that just occurred, CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY!
· SECURITY PATROLS: Consider after hours on site security at construction sites or major remodel projects. Many neighborhoods contract with private security patrols which monitor neighborhoods and can quickly respond to burglar alarm activations or reports of suspicious activity when they occur.
You may access crime mapping at www.crimemapping.com to review recent crimes in your area. Sign up to receive alerts when crime is reported in your neighborhood.
Security is very important to the Comstock Hills Homeowners Association (CHHOA) and has several aspects. These include: Our use of residential security services, individual homeowner security measures, and support from the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). This article will cover use of residential security services.
Two residential security companies have a significant presence in CHHOA. They are ACS and ADT. Both companies have advocates. Both companies have advantages and disadvantages. Both have made mistakes. CHHOA has no desire to play a favorite here, but for both current and historical reasons, there is a larger involvement of our residents with ACS by a more than 5 to 1 ratio.
The one thing that sets these two companies apart is the proximity of ACS headquarters to our neighborhood–their home facility is nearby at Sunset and Bel Air Road, where Beverly Glen Boulevard meets Sunset Boulevard. This enables ACS to dispatch reserve patrol cars, when available, from nearby, not only from headquarters, but also from other neighborhoods close by. It also gives the security monitor operators a familiarity with the names of streets and features, allowing a more rapid response to trouble areas. ADT, on the other hand, covers a larger area, with a commensurate dilution of available patrol cars and neighborhood familiarity. They are nevertheless quite capable in the services they render.
These facts have led to a situation whereby ACS provides a more-or-less regular patrol presence in CHHOA, and their trademark bright yellow patrol cars are frequently seen in our streets. It is "more-or-less regular" because we instituted a policy of intentional randomness, in order to discourage enterprising thieves from capitalizing on a predictability of patrol. There are citizens who do not notice their frequent presence, and there are others who notice the cars often. What we do is monitor ACS patrol logs and verify frequency of patrol from actual data. In the current arrangement, the frequency of ACS patrols depends on the number of subscribers. They currently patrol several times per day.
ADT patrol cars enter the neighborhood less frequently, on a random basis. This helps add in a general way to the security image in the neighborhood.
[ADT has, by the way, recently been purchased by a much larger entity, Apollo Global Management, which has very broad interests. It remains to be seen whether that change in ownership reflects on the ability of ADT to keep an eye on local interests such as neighborhood security. It is to be expected that Apollo will leave operational details to its individual components. The danger to the company would be that performance incentives imposed by Apollo may force ADT into management decisions that reflect negatively into performance to the relevant goals. That has happened elsewhere before. Time will tell.]
Security is a complicated business, involving, even within one security company, distinctively different degrees of service, with differing costs, client responsibilities, and communication methods, as well as the nuts-and-bolts details of emergency procedures.
CHHOA has worked with members when complaints have been expressed against the operations of some security services, to try to determine cause and reason for the complaints. We have found that commonly there is a misunderstanding between a client and the security company, especially with respect to just what the contracted services provide. This appears to be due to some failing on both sides of the problem — inadequate instruction/education from the security company and a lack of appreciation by the client as to what is cost-feasible by the company.
DISCLAIMER — CHHOA cannot warrant or guarantee the performance of any security company. However, we feel a responsibility to promote understanding of this subject which is so important to community well-being. We therefore describe here some of the considerations in this security-client relationship. Responsibility is determined in the contract that each client has with its security provider.
As a service to our membership we have defined the specific practices and procedures of ACS below. ADT has many similarities of operation. They have not, however, published corresponding procedural details.
ACS PATROL RESPONSE
Key Points
In reading what follows, clients should note certain critical information each needs to coordinate with ACS:
- Service level subscribed to (e. g. Monitoring, Armed Response, Full Patrol)
- Security phone number — memorize it or keep it handy to your telephone
- Memorize your password
- Specify Armed Response agency to monitoring (ACS, LAPD, other)
- Purpose and listing of the "call list" for emergency notifications, usually family living apart from the client
- Decide on how to respond in case of duress (see below)
- Understand the interaction between ACS and LAPD (also see below)
On Your Property
To begin with, in any situation, there is no substitute for calling ACS directly, even in cases where the threat is uncertain, but almost certainly when there is trespassing. Call them when in doubt. Remember, they are nearby. Keep the phone number handy: 310–475–9016. There is also the emergency button on your alarm box/keypad.
• If an alarm is received at the monitoring service, a telephone call is made to the client to inquire whether the cause is real, or simply an accidental triggering. A prearranged password is expected from the client. Clients should have a clear plan of how to respond if there is "duress," i.e. if there is a threatening intruder present. One method is to decide not to answer the inquiry call at all, as if no one is home. Not answering the inquiry call can be expected to result in the arrival of a patrol officer. This decision is the client’s responsibility.
• A monitoring client should have a clear prearrangement with the monitoring service as to which of three possible response organizations is notified: (1) ACS, (2) LAPD, (3) some other independent security company that the client pays for, or (4) none at all. Using (4) may seem to save money somehow, but the result is that a client’s emergency contacts, usually family, may be contacted instead of a professional armed guard service. This is not good at all from a security standpoint. Consider what good it does if your son in Northridge finds out perhaps hours later that you have an alarm going?
• Ordinarily, for a client subscribing to Armed Response service, (which is not the case for simple Monitoring clients) an ACS patrol officer responding to either a telephone request or an alarm signal will come to the property and act according to the nature of the call and the appearance of the property. This may result in either an exterior examination, or cautious entry if breaking and entering appears to have occurred.
LAPD Considerations
• Except in cases of evident ongoing confrontation, clients must understand that for situations on a residential property, if ACS knows that the LAPD has been called and are presumably on the way, ACS officers are required to wait immediately outside the property, to avoid confusion of identification by the police when they arrive. This is especially important at night or when visibility is limited. Otherwise, the ACS officer will examine the property of a subscriber as closely as necessary. ADT has a similar policy.
• The decision to call LAPD can be difficult. A 911 call describing an immediate emergency can be expected to result in a rapid, although sometimes unpredictable, response time depending on the urgency described to the 911 operator. However, routine calls to the LAPD, such as a triggered alarm which can often be false, or a noise complaint, can easily result in a delay of as much as an hour and a half. Their non-emergency number is 1-877-275-5273.
• A police permit is required for an alarm and is used by LAPD as a billing account # for you. Police do not want to respond to alarms, due to a manpower issue — an unofficial estimate is that more than 90% of all alarm activations are false. About 15 years ago the city of LA allowed you 3 free alarm responses and then charged you $35 to respond after the 3 free alarms.
There are no more free responses from LAPD, except for actual crimes. If you have a police permit (which costs around $35 initially and has to be renewed yearly for $30) the first response in a calendar year for a permitted alarm is $162.00 and each additional response increases by $50.00. Therefore for example the 3rd response from LAPD would cost $262.00.
The prices for a non-permitted alarm (if you do not have a police permit) are considerably higher. The first LAPD response is $262.00 and each additional response increases by $100.00. To use our same example as above the 3rd response from LAPD in one year would cost $462.00.
As a related comment on the thinking of the LAPD, description of the emergency is crucial to their handling of a 911 call. To them, "shots fired" is urgent. "Illegal fireworks" is not.
Patrol Service
The term “patrol service” does not refer to Armed Response in case of possible trouble. It refers to the planned presence of an ACS patrol car in our neighborhood streets under an arrangement CHHOA has with ACS. It is currently paid for by part of the fee paid by clients subscribing to Full Service. The frequency of passing of a car is dependent on the number of full service clients — the more full service clients, the more frequent the patrols. But even non-clients and Monitoring-only clients benefit from the presence of the patrol.
Armed Response is a separate service provided by ACS.
Patrol service generally helps in these ways:
- Makes possible a more rapid armed response
- Serves as a visible deterrent to wrong-doers
- Discovers conditions requiring security attention
In the meantime, we are monitoring their patrol frequency to ensure compliance with our agreements.
On the Street
We have discussed with ACS the subject of what they can do about questionable persons encountered while on patrol. It is a sensitive issue, for which they must practice a delicate tradeoff between customer service and potential liability. Here is how they can help us:
- If they see someone of a suspicious nature on a public street, even parked at the curb, they can practice intimidation by their presence, or parking and observing, or conspicuously taking a license number, or maintaining clear surveillance.
- However, they are not police, and have limited rights. They do not have the right to request ID, etc., from a "stranger" on a public street.
- In marginal cases, they can approach an individual, ask whether there is trouble or illness, and contact public services if appropriate.
This is consistent with what we have always expected from them. The bright yellow vehicle helps serve as a deterrent to crime.
[These descriptions have been reviewed and endorsed by ACS.]
A Final Note
Each client should make sure they know what terms and understanding he/she has with the security company. See “Key Points,” above.
For comments and questions contact Robert Scott ().
