SEATTLE — A new Seattle police policy goes into effect Oct. 1.
Officers will no longer be dispatched to burglary alarms from monitoring companies unless there is supporting evidence. The policy calls for proof like video, audio, panic alarms, or eyewitnesses. It's a change big enough to spark pushback at city hall.
"We are just asking that we slow this down just a bit,” one caller said on Tuesday morning during a public safety committee meeting.
Alarm companies say the policy has left them with a lot to do in a short amount of time.
Shannon Woodman, the CEO of Washington Alarm, told councilmembers the rule change means they must “notify our 65,000 alarm users in the City of Seattle.”
"We were notified last week,” Woodman told KING 5.
Washington Alarm received a letter from Seattle police that says starting Oct. 1, they will no longer respond to burglary alarms from monitoring companies based only on sensor or motion activators. SPD says in 2023, the 911 call center took about 13,000 residential and commercial burglary alarm calls, and reports that less than 4% were confirmed to have committed a crime that resulted in a written report or an arrest.
“With depleted resources, we cannot prioritize a patrol response when there is a very low probability that criminal activity is taking place,” the Seattle police letter said.
Woodman is concerned the police department's new rules will backfire.
"Unfortunately, a lot of those people doing the break-ins, they know they have time because police response is slow. If they find out that there is no police response, then the crime is going to go up significantly,” said Woodman.
Alarm companies are asking the city to study the issue more and hold public forums to discuss it.