This is a fictional story. All names, places, and viruses are used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, past or present, are intentional.
If you haven’t read from the beginning, please start at Chapter 1 here.
***
Due Date: 119 days away
A couple hours later, Jerry circulated an email that threatened to change that.
Our Central Station manager, the one in charge of the team dispatching the police for our customers’ security systems, told us that the police would no longer be responding to burglar alarms.
Chris immediately tasked Jerry with verifying if this was accurate.
Jerry called our LMPD dispatch number first.
They put him on hold, transferred him around, and didn’t get him any answers. He called back again, spoke with someone else, but still didn’t get anywhere.
We had a contact in the office of the chief of police. Jerry tried her.
She mentioned a memo that went out, but he wasn’t able to get a hold of it or speak with anyone who circulated it.
“I think it sounds suspect when I call regarding this,” Jerry emailed internally, “and they seem to not want to elaborate with more information. I’m sure they’re not advertising it.”
When I talked to Jerry, he said they didn’t trust him. “I’m sure they thought I was planning a robbery. They weren’t telling me anything.”
“Did you tell them who you are?”
“They get so many wacky calls. I could say I’m calling from the White House, and they wouldn’t bat an eye. Probably not even the first one of the day.”
He finally reached someone else at MetroSafe. They confirmed the report was true. They gave him a direct number for someone else at the Alarm Unit. Jerry left a voicemail. We weren’t holding our breath for a call back. If they weren’t responding to burglar alarms, what were the odds they’d respond to our voicemail?
Googling around, we dug up an article buried on a local news site: “LMPD no longer responds to hit-and-runs, wrecks, other incidents.” Way at the bottom, the article listed the “other incidents” that had been deprioritized per the memo: burglar alarms, medical alarms, non-injury incidents, speeding, reckless drivers. They dropped this gem as the last line of the article: “The Chief of Police emphasized that this is not a comprehensive list of incidents the police are currently not responding to during this heightened state of emergency.”
“So in other words, when we need them most, the police aren’t coming?” I couldn’t believe it.
“How much ammo do you have?” Jerry asked me when I was over in his office.
My face loosened up. “Not much.”
“Do you need a gun?”
I didn’t have any. A decade before, I thought about getting one. I thought it would be cool at the time. Then I became a minimalist and got rid of my phone.
“I’d be willing to part with one, if you need one,” he said.
“I appreciate that, Jerry. I know where to find you.”
I wasn’t kidding about that. And I knew he wasn’t either.
“I’m not worried about the virus,” he said. “I’m worried what it’s going to do to our economy. Most people can’t be off two weeks. What if this goes on for a month?”
“You know that phrase, ‘We’re only nine meals from anarchy’?” I said. “We’re always like, ‘It’ll never get to that.’ And then we hear the police have stopped responding? Just saying. If that doesn’t sound like we’re about to miss a meal…”
I shrugged.
“I have two daughters.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he said it, no blinking. “One of them takes medicine every day. That medicine keeps her alive.”
We both understood each other on that. We’d had the medicine conversation before, way before the virus even. The pharmaceutical industry. Supply chain. All that. The latest from the police only reminded us that it was real.
But maybe it wasn’t all bad.
Leaving the office that day, I started treating red lights like stop signs: slow down enough to check both ways and then drive on through.
