One reason why the RCMP take so long to respond
 

So, what's the point of having an alarm at all ?????? RCMP is turning into a statistics keeping bureau, nothing more.

Grizz

15,500 false alarms is not an insignificant stat. And that does not include Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Med. Hat, not sure who polices Red Deer.

Anything that does not produce revenue or result in a positive image photo op gets moved farther down the priority list. Really time to look at a provincial police force.

Hello, 911 ? Alarm went off in my business and no one responded. Went out with the 12 gauge to verify. Please have the cops come by and pick up the body. :lol: That's what it boils down to.
Grizz

Why don't people just buy the kind of security systems that notify cell
& bypass this stupidity of having the police invainly showing up?

This is a huge problem for fire departments also.
At least our town bills the home owner for false alarms but that doesn't seem to working as much of a deterrent.

My alarm company has on file that I own firearms and which zone they are located in. This alone should be enough to flip the Cherry’s on and get at er but who knows it may not matter to the police these days given the stats lol

Another cop bashing thread. Has it been a week already?

Did everyone read this part?

According to the release, police will still respond to ATM, multi-zone intrusion, panic, duress, holdup, glass break, domestic violence and verified alarms.....

Cop bashing? or just another example of the RCMP trying to shirk their responsibilities to the citizens of the province. Can they really do much less with regard to rural crime?

Will the next RCMP official policy soon be unless shots are fired in the case of a rural theft...........please just call your insurance company. That is basically the policy already, just not officially.

When I ran tow trucks after hours I had a call from rcmp to pull a cruiser that was stuck in snow in a bad snowstorm. He called me 10 min after I pulled him out to come back to we’re he was. The call was the phone line went down to the farm and the phone company apparently is notified about it instantly and if cant contact then immediately contacts police. This is way down south and rural area and he had to wake the residents in the house to verify they were alright. I went back and pulled him out for free. But down here the detachments are so spread out you never know we’re the closest rcmp is. A lot of them down here are really good guys and would love to be there but travel time has to be considered. Now look at my response time to get the call and wake up and drive to shop. Get truck out and leave. 30 min drive in those conditions cause of the snow storm and to get there and pull him out with rigging give it an hr from from getting the call till he’s out. If it would of been summer time I could have been there in half the drive time and got him out twice as fast. Then he had an aprox 5 min drive to the farmyard. The rcmp would love to be there when these guys are doing this crap in rural areas but you have to consider they are usually on patrol somewhere else and have to race to the scene. It’s sad it happens about all the crime up to the north but we have it here to in the very southern part of the province to. It’s just easier pickings for them if they know it’s gonna 30-1hr before a cop shows up there. Don’t blame the police for anything, they’d love to catch these guys but when they are 30 or more away they just can’t be there instantly. If you want to blame someone blame the fact if they break into your home and you catch them you pretty much have to let them take everything and wait. It’s all politics and not being able to defend yourself and property from things like this. Imagine if this were a problem even 30 yrs ago? Officer would probably shake your hand and thank you for catching the waste of skin!

Looking at the crime stats, I'm not sure anyone is policing Red Deer.

Well I had an interesting thing today. Got a call to a house fire. When we arrived the house was broken into. Home owner said he was scared and figured the cops would not respond quick so he called in a fire! Back door was smashed in and guy was scared good. Cops showed up about 15 min later to handle the case..

I still have some faith in the police. It's the judicial system I have problems with.

About an hour ago, 2:30 AM, I went on my balcony for a quick cigarette and I noticed someone breaking into one car in our parking lot. 2 minutes later he is trying to break into my car. I called the EPS and they were there within 3 minutes and did catch the perp. He had a suitcase full of goods stolen from a few vehicles tonight. Hopefully the police will at least keep him for a couple hours and the stolen goods get returned.

Yup, not one of these individuals have a clue what really goes on but man can they vent....
Prime example of false alarms, buddies wife insisted on an alarm system, one of those bla bla bla ones got taken hook line and sinker and then the dam thing started acting up, false alarms etc sooooooo she goes on a trip......he tore the dam thing out saying it was tying up valuable emergency responders time when they could be responding to real calls etc.....how true!

Aesop wrote a story about this
 

Anyone bashing this new policy should read "the boy who cried wolf". The moral of the story still applies to this day.
Too many stupid people with too many toys they don't know how to use properly leads to new rules that impact everyone; sound familiar? And no, there is no difference between operator error and equipment malfunction when it comes to tying up law enforcement resources responding to false alarms.

Since law enforcement, like pretty much else, has become a business, perhaps the solution is to charge home owners for every false alarm? This will encourage the homeowners to be more responsible, and the income can be used to increase staff if required to make response times more acceptable.

From my experience in commercial alarms at work I thought they did do that? Or my boss is a big jerk and tried to charge us anyways.

For those that are bashing “RCMP” just remember just because you don’t agree with the possible underlying unspoken about RCMP policies that you dislike so much, most police officers feel the same way and want to do everything in their power to assist but can’t all the time. Either time, resources or policy gets in the way sometimes but most are hard working and do the job not for the money but for the job itself. It’s a passion job, maybe not for all but most want to do good and slamming them isn’t going to help anything.

The reason people have alarms is to protect their property. If it's not working, time to look for another option. We've been sold on alarm systems for eons, apparently we've been scammed.

Grizz

Ummm. I am very disappointed in the RCMP bashing group. This thread has been up for well over 12 hours and no one has mentioned high river. What kind of bash thread is this. Look alive people.:)

I pretty sure what they are trying to say is, they need to put their people where the problems are, At the rural property that is actually being broke into, not your house with your cat swinging from the curtain for the fourth time, or the wind moving the blinds because the window was left open. when they should be answering the call with a broken window with people actually crossing the line.

x2...my intent for posting this was to show people part of the reason response times are as long as they are...but it has turned into cop bashing.
So...the cure. They respond promptly to every alarm they get. The only way of course to do this is triple their manpower.
This of course will mean a fair sized tax increase.
Which will set off all the whiners on AO about how overtaxed they already are (in fact their is just such a thread here now).
As I said in that thread...AO's...'whiners just want to whine'!!

Big difference here, city police forces tend to be very reliable, the RCMP not so much. I used to work closely with law enforcement all over Alberta and always hated dealing with the RCMP. The company I used to work for even stopped taking contracts in certain areas because of their poor responses and total lack of professionalism. I even had guys refuse work because they didn't feel safe knowing it was the RCMP who would respond. Unless they know it will be a photo op or are protecting their own, don't count on any quality response from them.
As said many times on this forum" to serve summons and protect themselves"
Actually there is one good thing I can say about them, any time I did call them, it meant lots of overtime pay.:sHa_sarcasticlol:

If they would get their act together and once again become a group of dedicated, respectable professionals we wouldn't have the need to bash them on a weekly basis.

Here in Calgary we are now being charged an annual "Permit Renewal Fee" for both private and commercial alarms...no better service, just a fee because we have an alarm which we need if we want our insurance rates to be lower....sheesh, how many new ways can they put lipstick on the old Tax Pig?

If I'm not mistaken, the EPS and CPS already have this exact same policy regarding 1 hit alarms, and they implemented it last year... If I recall the stat from the news this morning, the EPS indicated 95% of all alarms are false, particularly 1 hits......
Makes sense to me - 1 hit is a door may have been pushed, faulty sensor (trust me - we recently had one replaced...every time cat rubbed against patio door....), etc. Multiple hits, someone is moving thru house....

I know what they are trying to say, problem is that is mostly all they ever do is "say" would be nice if they started doing. I have mentioned this before and maybe someone in the know can tell me why we can not use the military to help until we get a handle on rural crime.

RCMP in the province just keeps talking about short staff, to far travel blah blah blah. Get the military to set up sting operations, do patrols, surveillance try and actually PREVENT crime. It is obvious after the past 3-4 years that the RCMP are either unwilling or unable to even make a small dent in rural crime. Is the problem the number of RCMP officers or is it their attitude, it is like you are bothering them when you call in a rural crime.

Twice around this area now people have called the fire dept, same reason as listed in another thread, you can't really trust the RCMP to show up for at least 2 hours or more. That is maybe not good use of a fire dept. but what has happened is people have been forced to work around the dismal performance of the RCMP and get help from someone. Fireman may not be armed but lots of sirens and the thought of 4-5 men showing up is comforting to someone who may be fearing for their life.

Gotta disagree. Maybe 10 years ago but currently EPS has gone way down hill. It seems right around the time Knecht became Chief. Make a call to them now that's not a 911 call and it takes 5 minutes to go through the menu options on the phone. I've called about catching guys sneaking around our back yard, drug sales, drug use etc... Nothing gets done. I tried calling these in as 911 calls to "report the danger" when these lowlifes get high and drive off and still nothing. But they sure were eager to show how patrolling the river for safety on a long weekend was making such a big difference to the City. It's not the rank and file but the management and lack of funding that are the issue.

"Alberta RCMP are following a new alarm policy after just under 15,500 false alarms took up an estimated 8,000 human resource hours in 2017."


What does that work out to, 4-5 personnel per year (not exclusively "officer" time)?


And this effort is effecting response times?



Pretty sure the problem is Not false alarms.

oh that is just disgusting. Almost as bad as being charged $85 per year for a little tiny 2 digit sticker on a license plate. She even whined when I said I wanted new plates for all my vehicles, in numerical order if possible, please? Makes them easier to remember, but she would not do it. Wanted me to fill out a lost/stolen/misplaced form for every single plate, not worth the bs.


As a side note, we have a great working relationship with the RCMP here. Their detachment is 23 miles away, and if we call saying it is urgent they are here very quickly whenever possible. I have no complaints at all about the help they give. We work with them as much as a small town can, and I hope it keeps working as well as it is.

Just curious what they have done to prevent crime, or have they just done the follow up reports after the fact like everyone else. All come very quickly whenever possible..........and how often is that?:thinking:thinking-006: