What happens when Las Vegas home security alarms go off and are left unverified? The Police will NOT respond.
One of the questions that we are most often asked is who we call in the event an alarm is triggered.
In all of Clark County, police departments have a non-response policy to unverified alarms. What this means to the average alarm customer with most alarm companies is that in most cases, it is almost impossible to get an actual police response with the types of alarm systems that people relocating to the Las Vegas area are used to having.
This comes as a surprise to most people, because almost everywhere in the country, if an alarm is triggered, there is always a police response. Not so here in Las Vegas.
What to expect when a guard is dispatched.
There is a lot of confusion based around what happens if an alarm is triggered at a home or business in the Las Vegas area, and we feel like a lot of that confusion is based on some alarm companies not setting proper expectations ahead of setting up a new alarm account.
Our sales department frequently hears that someone wants to cancel their service with another company and switch to Sting because a guard response took too long. There is a common expectation that a guard should show up as immediately as possible, and while that is an ideal scenario, it is not generally a realistic one.
The honest truth is that a guard is going to show up as soon as they can. Right now, the average response time for a guard dispatch is approximately thirty minutes. Frequently, it is significantly longer. Of course, sometimes, it is significantly shorter. This is entirely based on volume of dispatch requests and current guard distance from the alarm event.
Also, we think it is important that you know that a guard’s job description is to secure the perimeter of the site, make sure there are no signs of forced entry, and to make sure that you are physically safe from harm. While it would probably be a lot of fun to have a trained team of hooded assassins arrive with an eye towards capturing and handcuffing nefarious parties, the truth is that the focus is making sure you don’t walk in on an armed assailant and get hurt.
A guard’s primary goal is to secure the site, and look for anything that indicates that this is a verified alarm event for which the police can be contacted. If they are unable to meet that standard, they are required to move on to be available for the next alarm event. If you are not home to meet the guard at the time of their visit, they will leave a note about their visit. You should also be aware that a guard is not legally allowed to climb over fences to check side and back doors. They are likewise not permitted to enter your home under any circumstances if you are not present to physically invite them in.
How is Sting Alarm different?
It is our goal to make sure that we almost never have to dispatch a guard to your location due to an unverified alarm. While most alarm companies are content to put a few sensors on exterior doors and connect them to a rubber button keypad, we are not content with the level of service that provides in the Las Vegas area.
If you are in immediate danger, or your home is being ransacked while you are away, ideally we want there to be absolutely no question as to whether or not something is actually happening. To that end, we install complete alarm systems with all of the tools that you could need to have no question that there is a verified alarm event taking place at the time that it is happening.
Our most frequently installed alarm keypad is a touch screen keypad with a speaker and a microphone built in. With simple alarm systems, if an alarm is triggered, a central station employee will start calling down a list of people to try to figure out what is going on. In our case, an actual human being starts speaking through the panel and making a verbal command to identify. If at that point, we hear someone moving around and they are not responding, responding incorrectly, or we hear a struggle of any kind, that is considered a verified alarm for which the police can be immediately contacted.
Professional criminals are very adept at circumventing the most common alarm systems. Some of the do-it-yourself options you see advertised on television or sitting on the shelf at a big box retail store are remarkably easy to disable. Not so with a professionally installed alarm system from Sting Alarm.
We have an entire suite of video surveillance options that can be integrated into our alarm systems, giving you instant and immediate access to view your cameras the precise moment an alarm is triggered.
WE ARE LOCAL. We have been in Las Vegas for 17 years. Our office location is at Las Vegas Boulevard and Warm Springs. Our service department is right here in our building. Our technicians arrive in a Sting vehicle, with a Sting uniform, a Sting badge, and a Sheriff’s Card so you can be confident that you are dealing with a reputable company.
Human beings work here. We’ve all heard horror stories of sitting on hold for hours on end with overwhelmed national companies who are very good at selling new accounts…but maybe not quite so excellent at providing an amazing customer experience once that initial sale is made. When you call in to Sting Alarm, a human being answers the phone almost always within about 30 seconds. Even better, our service department is staffed with some of the most amazing people you’ll ever work with.
Interested in a smart home alarm system? Fill out our “Free Quote” form or give us a call at 702-737-8464 and one of our Sting Alarm Security Professionals will be with you!