Don't Say That Seattle Police Are Being Defunded

That is such a 2020 position. Seattle police won’t respond to tripped security alarms without verification

Instead of the dreaded "defunding," say rather that the Seattle Police Department is dealing the real world reality of having much lower staffing numbers. (Optimizing not defunding was actually from a different article on this story.) There are reasons, including the (don't mention it!) defunding, but also including large exodus of the officers on their own initiative.

The upshot of this story is that Seattle PD will no longer respond to burglar alarms, unless there is video evidence that it is not a false alarm.

But Washington Alarm is sounding the alarm that the change in policy didn’t come with enough warning.

The alarm monitoring and installation company found out about the change on Sept. 13, said CEO Shannon Woodman.

Woodman said the company doesn’t have enough time to change 65,000 alarm systems in the Seattle area to comply with the requirement for evidence of a possible burglary. Upgrading systems could cost $5,000 for a small home, or $100,000 for a massive warehouse. Woodman estimates about 2% of Washington Alarm’s current customers have their systems outfitted for additional verification.

I can attest to the fact that there are false alarms. Once I had a burglar alarm, mostly because there were a string of violent home invasions going on in the community - though in a wealthier part of the city than where I lived. Police response time was excellent. I paid for a lot of false alarms, though there was one incident that was probably the real deal. When I moved, I never had a system installed in any of my new homes.

So a massive change in policy with no debate, no warning, and no thought about the follow on consequences. Sounds like a giant bureaucracy to me.

This will have unintended consequences, though I have no idea what those will be. Will this impact business or personal insurance in the city? Will this change the patterns of property crime? If Seattle police aren't going to do this, will they have better luck fighting violent crime? God only knows at this point.