In a recent case decided in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas, an issue arose as to whether a police officer violated the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures without a search warrant, where the police officer was responding to a burglar alarm. More specifically, the question presented was whether the law enforcement officers’ response to the burglar alarm, combined with their observations at the scene, created an exigency that justified a warrantless entry into the residence.
In the case at hand, an alarm signal was received. A telephone call was placed to the residence by the alarm company and an individual answered the phone, but was unable to provide the homeowner’s personal identification code. The alarm company called the police department who dispatched an officer to the scene. After the police were dispatched, the alarm was restored and automatically reset. In response the alarm company contacted the police department to cancel the alarm. Under the department’s policy, however, it does not permit a 911 operator to cancel an alarm call once officers have been dispatched to the scene. The 911 operator neither informed the police dispatcher nor the responding police officers that the alarm company had cancelled the call.