The LA City Council reached a compromise yesterday in a somewhat contentious funding dispute. Apparently a very high number, well over 90% of burglar alarms are false alarms. The police already treats such alarms as a low-priority call and take on average an hour to respond. Because of budgetary concerns, the police was asking to be able to ignore all burglar alarms. The council decided on a policy where people are allowed two false alarms and then the police can choose not to respond.

Me: As soon as someone gets killed, they’re gonna rush to repeal this.
Dad: When would people get killed?
Me: There’ll be a home invasion robbery and someone will die and then everyone will get upset.
Dad: It’s a burglar alarm, not a home invasion alarm.

Followed by some bickering and then him telling me to stop arguing and listen to the radio. Well, I didn’t say I liked the idea, just that it’s something I’d expect. As soon as they cut funding for, say, traffic lights, someone gets killed at some corner, and they restore the funding. Unless this policy only applies to business alarms, I can see where in the next few years there will be some incident.

I was also thinking its easier to break into buildings now. Just trip the alarm twice, and your third attempt is free!