She's making the ultimate sacrifice

Who the hell decided that this was a good idea? The level of common sense is too damn low!

I think some clarification is needed here. These signal boxes were not INSIDE buildings. They were outside, on street corners. A person would run down to the corner to pull the lever and signal the firemen to come to that location. A lock like this would just be to deter kids on the corner from pulling it for no reason.