Anyone else heard this RE. SAPS?

VellaJ

So today two guys tried breaking into the house across the street from us. Due to the owners' subscription with a certain armed response company, the company doesn't send a car, only calls a selected neighbor (in this case, my house) and checks to see what's happening. When I told them that there was nobody home, they said they'd call the cops.

They phoned back a few minutes later, to tell us that the police won't be attending, as they're only responding to bank and ATM robberies...

Anyone else heard about this? I'm going up to our local station to report the robbery, and find out if this story is true. My suspicion is that the response company called 10111, and got some generic story for country-wide response...

Sean

VellaJ wrote So today two guys tried breaking into the house across the street from us. Due to the owners' subscription with a certain armed response company, the company doesn't send a car, only calls a selected neighbor (in this case, my house) and checks to see what's happening. When I told them that there was nobody home, they said they'd call the cops.

They phoned back a few minutes later, to tell us that the police won't be attending, as they're only responding to bank and ATM robberies...

Anyone else heard about this? I'm going up to our local station to report the robbery, and find out if this story is true. My suspicion is that the response company called 10111, and got some generic story for country-wide response...

No response from the "armed response company" ??? What exactly is your neighbour paying them for?

VellaJ

Sean wrote
No response from the "armed response company" ??? What exactly is your neighbour paying them for?

Paying them to phone us, apparently ?

Averatu

Sounds like horse manure to me. As far as I know the 10111 call centre is outsourced, the person answering the call is not a police official. Call the local police station and demand to speak to the 'station commissioner'.

aja

So their "armed response" is there to call their neighbour and ask them to phone the police, failing that the neighbour should risk his life and jump the wall to see what is going on?

Hmmm.... Interesting business model....

Let me guess, when you sign up you get a free tupperware bowl!

Bob-Dubery

In the last 6 years I've twice had occasion to call the Old Bill. Neither time was I calling about a bank or ATM robbery. In both cases they were there within minutes.

Wizard

Our armed response is super efficient.
Had a break-in once where the oke grabbed a guitar and two laptops then ran.
The armed response was so fast they saw the guy running away ... chased him ... and he dumped the laptops.

DonovanB

Wizard wrote The armed response was so fast they saw the guy running away ... chased him ... and he dumped the laptops.

So he carried on running with the guitar? I hope they shot him... ?

VellaJ

Donovan Banks wrote So he carried on running with the guitar? I hope they shot him... ?

+1 :roflmao:

Ok so I just spoke to our local station. Apparently this particular response company sends a car around to the address of the alarm. If all looks quite, they leave a note and go home. If they see someone in the house, they call the police.

However, considering they didn't send a car around, I think the guy on the phone was talking a load of **** when he said the police wouldn't respond. The station told me that if they had received a call, they would have responded, whether it involved a bank or not...

Skywalker

Wizard wrote Our armed response is super efficient.
Had a break-in once where the oke grabbed a guitar and two laptops then ran.
The armed response was so fast they saw the guy running away ... chased him ... and he dumped the laptops.

Care to share with us who your guys are Wizard? Been having a few problems with our guys where we stay >☹ Bloody fast asleep most of the time they are!!!

Wizard

Skywalker wrote

Care to share with us who your guys are Wizard? Been having a few problems with our guys where we stay >☹ Bloody fast asleep most of the time they are!!!
[/quote]
ADT
But I suppose it has more to do with the particular management and people involved than it has to do with the company.

prince

My story takes place back in the early days of the new South Africa.....

I was staying at my sisters place in Johannesburg. One evening I opened the curtain so I could close the window and saw a guy dressed in dark clothes walking along the pavement at about twice the normal speed. And he was carrying a hifi system which still had wires dragging on the floor. I phoned the SAP (probably already the SAPS by then)P and got Sergeant Ngubane on the phone. When I told him that I had seen a suspicious looking guy almost running along the pavement carrying a hifi he asked my "Why did this man look suspicious". Not wanting to offend Sergeant Ngubane I didn't really have an answer for him but asked if he would send someone anyway. I then jumped in my car, just like Starksy and Hutch, and went looking for the guy. I found the hifi just up the road alongside a bush. Further down the road I found 2 old school metro cops and told them what I had seen giving them a description of the guy I saw. They wheel spun out of there and raced down the road. A short while later I came across them again and they told me they had found the guy and his accomplice. The 2 "suspects" were hanging from the mesh cage on the back of their bakkie but neither of them was the guy I had seen. They swore at them and let them out the bakkie and went looking for the real crook. I never saw the SAP(S), they never bothered coming to see what was happening.

Another time, I was in my office and heard this almighty crash outside. A bakkie loaded with beer bottles heading out towards the township had rolled and was upside down in the road with crates and smashed beer bottles all over the road. I phoned the local SAP (just still in the old SA this one) and told the lady constable Dladla who answered the phone that "A bakkkie has just rolled in ???? Road, there are bottles lying all over the road". Minutes later half a dozen ambulances and 3 fire engines came screaming along the road. When we went out to see what was happening, the one medic asked me "So where are all the bodies lying in the road?" :-\