From left to right, Tennessee Chiefs of Police Association past president Lee Reese, Georgia Chiefs of Police Association past president Lou Dekmar, NBFAA director Cecil Hogan, SIAC executive director Stan Martin, SIAC law enforcement liaison Glen Mowrey, CANASA's Ivan Spector, and CSAA president Dick Sampson.
"I don't know a better way to free up officers to deal with Homeland Security issues," said Lee Reese, past president of the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police. Reese is referring to enhanced call verification (ECV), which, with the help of the Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC) has been adopted by leaders of the Georgia and Tennessee Associations of Chiefs of Police as part of a cooperative public safety initiative to reduce alarm dispatches.

Companies in states such as Colorado and California have already committed to implementing ECV, and more states will follow, said Stan Martin, executive director of SIAC.

ECV is an alarm management protocol developed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, National Sherrifs Association and the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association. The protocol requires monitoring centers to make two calls to a customer to determine whether an invalid alarm has occurred - in an effort to reduce dispatches to police.

Criticom International is one monitoring business that is encouraging its dealer base to adopt ECV for its customers, although the company is not making it mandatory for dealers to adopt it at this time, said Robert Few, vice president of operations at Criticom. The company has already implemented ECV in several locations across the country and is continuing to implement the protocol in other areas. - Maggie McFadden, Associate Editor