June 7, 2011

 

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comments

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Ken,

A friend of mine moved to the Chicago area and bought a house. He moved all his furniture and belongings from the Midwest to the house.

His itinerary included extensive travel. So he notified the police as he had done in the Midwest that he would be traveling and asked that his house be watched. When he came home his house was completely empty and no one saw anything. Welcome to the big city. This is why jewelry stores are privately monitored and why private guard services are employed.

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On the story of a motorcycle cop. My father as a child accompanied his father , mother and sister to church in his father's new La Salle that had a novelty , a speedometer. On Sunday returning home fron church, the local pearl handled revolver motorcycle cop came from behind a billboard and pulled my grandfather over for speeding.

My grandfather explained that his new car had a speedometer and that he was driving within the posted speed limit . The cop said "Oh a XXXXXX wise guy" . My father had never seen his father lose his temper. The only indication was his father's face turned red and he griped the steering wheel and said nothing despite having the policeman swear at him in front of his family.

My grandfather went home and made some calls . His job at Bethlehem Steel was cooperate construction council and compensation director where Bethlehem had the best employment plan of any company in the country at that time and empolyed half the county.

He also served as a judge from time to time.

The motorcycle cop who swore at my grandfather in front of his family left the county within three days not to be heard from again.

Every one is accountable

Blair Ames

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Hi Ken;

When I read the email about Fontana PD, I thought that there must be a mistake. But after scrolling through their rather extensive web page, I came across their alarm ordinance #1624. Not only is it 13 pages long, but if their web page is original and not just a boiler plate design that they just had to fill in the name and telephone numbers, then I'm sure they spent way more in legal billable hours than the manpower hours used for the 8,000 burglar alarms that they responded to the year before the enactment of the ordinance.

You can tell by the tenor and tone of the wording in the ordinance, that the writer researched and did his or her best to plug any possible loophole in the law. But there are at least two things that are painfully obvious about it: 1) the writer never spoke to anyone in the alarm industry about how burglar and fire alarms function, and 2) the Fontana PD failed to notify Security 1st. about the new ordinance. You would think that after spending untold thousands of dollars putting together this frankenstein of an ordinance, they would at least have the common sense or decency to notify the people that it would affect.

The one part of the ordinance that I did agree with, was the "two zone verification" part. In essence, it says that two separate zones have to be violated within 10 minutes for it to be considered a verified response. It was that very part of the ordinance that made me realize that they could not have spoken to anyone in the alarm industry, because it could also be two signals sent from the same zone in that time period.

I guess they never heard of a "swinger" that can open and close a circuit as fast and as often as Ringo Starr doing a drum solo. I believe they are going to start a revolution, but not the one they think. I know if I lived there, I would be organizing rallies to throw the elected officials out of office, and force the chief of police into an early retirement. Arrogance has no place in government when it comes to dealing with the very people that they have sworn to protect and serve.

John from NJ

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Ken

Not true on the Fontana issue. The charge for $150 is for calling the PD before verifying. If you remember, this is the city where the Inland empire alarm Association took Fontana to court and won the battle on making alarm companies pay the fine for false alarms. It was found unconstitutional.

Larry Rudolph

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Hi Ken,

Dave Wyland of Security 1st didn’t provide enough details for a fair comment on his Fontana issue. See Security Systems News, September 23, 2010, The dust settles over Fontana.

Jon Sargent

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Ken,

Regarding the email from Dave with Security 1st, we have a few systems in Fontana California and had the same type of incident happen.

One of our monitored businesses had some gang members come into the cafe and start trouble. The employees were so intimidated they ran from the building after pushing the ER button on the keypad. We were fined for dispatching the call even thought it was needed. I appealed the fine and was lucky enough to get it taken off. We had our few clients sign a statement that we will not dispatch the PD for any reason and it is up to the client to call the PD if they want them. So far it has worked OK with no more fines.

As a retired cop I am ashamed of the way police departments are treating the people who are trying to protect themselves.

Now most of the police departments in Southern California are not even taking traffic accident reports unless a death, injury or hit an run driver is involved.

Ken

ADS

 

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Ken

RE: Fontana: I am not sure where our friend Dave has been for 3 ½ years, the Fontana program has been the most radically extreme of ANY Dept, they have been public and vocal. They have been sued by the Inland Empire Alarm Assoc, and lost, twice. There is a lot here, and it’s not over! Feel free to TT me, and I’ll get anyone into the loop. What Fontana can do, ANY City can do, and they will!

Bruce Boye