Is Video Accepted ECV / More On ECV - What's S/R - May 19, 2014

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Is video accepted ECV follow up from May 14 2014
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Ken,
    Regarding ECV.  Here is the URL of the ordinance I referenced in Seattle that lists video verification as equivalent.  http://www.seattle.gov/police/programs/alarms/callverification.htm
    “The monitoring company calls in stating they have real time audio or video on a site and their review of the audio/video indicates that a crime is in progress (not just someone on site)
    This is proper ECV and the call will be accepted”
    Please understand that I am in favor of ECV, not opposed to it.  I am in favor of ECV and all tools that we create and use to reduce needless dispatches.  It seem that someone misunderstood my initial comments and took them to mean that I was somehow denigrating ECV.  Not true.  Video verification is not a threat to ECV and other means of false alarm reduction.  Video verification (and audio verification as noted in the ordinance) is intended to increase arrests and the effectiveness of alarm systems to make apprehensions – and it does.  There is no question audio/video verified alarms make more arrests.  Sonitrol recently celebrated their 140,000 arrest and provides the industry with something to be proud of.
    ECV, cross zoning, user training, ordinances, proper enforcement (and other best practices) certainly help reduce needless dispatches and I applaud them.  Ron Haner was personally involved in helping push an entire generation of false alarm reduction tools into ordinances in the Northwest.  His efforts (and the efforts of those who worked with him including Mike Miller, Stan Martin and the Washington Alarm Assn.) have left a valuable legacy that serves the industry to this day.  I again say, “Thank you!”
    What they have not done, however, is to significantly move the needle on arrests.  As far as I know, there are no false alarm reduction tools that really change the arrest rates.  I don’t even think that this is really a goal of ECV.  It is proven that video/audio verification does exactly that; makes more arrests.  This is actually the focus of my comment and the real distinction I was attempting to make between false alarm reduction tools and audio/video verified alarms: reduced dispatch count vs. arrests. 
Thank you,
Keith Jentoft
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more on ECV - what's S/R
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Ken
    The NewsLetter audience might like a closer look at several ordinances in the ECV debate: 
    Most of the success from the Washington ordinances (that quickly and radically reduced false alarms) has little or nothing to do with the legislated ECV/Enhanced Call Verification. Good example is Seattle (25,000 unnecessary alarm response in ‘04 reduced to about 10,000 now in 2014). 
    Most people forget the root source of the reduction is “SR/Subsidy Recovery”, not legislated ECV, video, audio, or….. Most of your readers have not heard of “S/R”… but now need–to–know. (Paraphrased below)
    S/R is very simple… the caller pays a fee for police services… note, the CALLER,  i.e. the monitoring source.  In Seattle it is $115.  Every request for alarm response is billed to the alarm company that made the call… no freebies.  Zero fines/fees levied to the customer alarm site. Each call is assumed to be false. If evidence at the scene shows a 911 type event, the charge is voided.  If a cancellation is requested, the monitoring firm is billed a cancellation fee.  Here is a link for details… www.seattle.gov/police/programs/Alarms/
    History: In Seattle in ’04 the city was planning the dreaded VR/Verified Response, like Salt Lake City… but the local, regional, national alarm associations made lots and lots of noise and promises about a better way….new ECV, and the model ordinance, and better training, and higher user fines etc, etc,. So, Seattle gave the entire operational and financial responsibility directly to the alarm associations, via “S/R Subsidy Recovery”…   and gave the industry the flexibility and responsibility for their best practices, and all the tricks and magic that was promised.    
    Yes… it backfired on the clever alarm associations…. Now what? What to do… a third party monitoring company collecting $5 monthly revenue with the responsibility of $115 if they flip a call to the police….Daaa calls for police services dropped rather quickly. This is a good example of how ECV is used as both a political tool and operational tool.  ECV became meaningless add-on legislation several years latter to hijack the success of the overall “SR/Subsidy Recovery” program.  Another example of why SIAC should be disbanded and shuttered.  
Lee Jones
Support Services Group
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