False Alarm Calls Decline

FAYETTEVILLE — Police are being called to nearly half as many false alarm calls as they did six years ago.

Sgt. Craig Stout said the reduction can be attributed to two factors: a city ordinance and call verification.

“The Police Department isn’t the first call made by the alarm company anymore,” he said. “In a matter of 20 seconds, the alarm company can call a home, business or cellphone to see if an alarm was accidental.”

The false alarm ordinance, approved in 2007, aims to reduce false alarm calls requiring police response.

It requires businesses and residents to pay fines for every false alarm call, beginning with the second offense.

Police Chief Greg Tabor said the city this month is reminding residents and business owners to register their alarms.

Registration is free, he said, and can be done online, over the phone or at the police department.

“We had an incident where a guy got a bill for not registering,” Tabor said. “He said he didn’t know he had to register. While it’s not our job to make sure you know the law, we’re trying to come up with a way to make sure people know about it.”

Fines start at $75 and reach up to $250. The city has collected $198,955 since the program started.

CryWolf, a Maryland-based alarm monitoring service, receives 28 percent of the fees collected. The rest goes to the general fund.

“The point wasn’t to make a profit,” Stout said. “It was to reduce our overall calls for service and we’ve done that.”

Though false alarms still make up about 99 percent of all alarm calls, Stout said the city has reduced false alarms by 44 percent.

Police responded to 3,527 false alarm calls in 2007. The number dropped to 1,293 in 2012.

“Our number of false alarms are down significantly, but we still get a lot,” Tabor said. “Our ultimate goal would be if we could get zero false alarm calls.”

In comparison, Chicago police respond to about 300,000 false alarm calls annually, according to Vintech Digital Security Solutions.

According to the most recent information from the U.S. Department of Justice, police responded to about 36 million alarm activations in 2002, at an estimated annual cost of $1.8 billion. About 98 percent of all alarm calls nationwide are false and account for 10 to 25 percent of all police calls.

Tabor said false alarms are caused by a variety of factors, including employee error, environment, improper code input, power outages, animals and equipment malfunctions. By enforcing a fine, police hope to provide an incentive for businesses and residents to properly use and maintain their alarms.

“You might have a birthday party and a balloon comes loose and sets off the motion detector,” Tabor said. “Most of our false alarms come from businesses and are caused by employee error.”

Mel Collier, manager of Collier Drug Store on Dickson Street, said he understands the intent of the ordinance, but doesn’t find it effective.

Collier said during the past year police responded to three or four false alarms at the store on Dickson Street and the store on Futrall Drive.

“I’m first on the alarm call list and I’ve told (the alarm company) to cancel because I knew what set it off,” he said. “The police still responded and I still got charged. I don’t know whose fault it was — the alarm company for not canceling or the police for responding.”

Repeated calls to ADT Security Systems weren’t returned last week.

Collier said he’s been fined at least $250 for having more than one false alarm.

He’s taken corrective action, but said that doesn’t always solve the problem.

“Anything can trigger it,” he said. “It could be that the air conditioner blows something off the wall. Being on Dickson Street, we have a lot of drunk people who stumble up to our door and jiggle it. If (the police) want to send someone down here for every alarm call and figure out what tripped it, that would help because it’s never the same problem. Right now, what they consider encouragement for no falses is a penalty.”

David Tate, physical plant director for the Fayetteville School District, said art work that falls off the high school’s hallways often triggers false alarms.

“Whenever we have an alarm, we have to decide if there’s someone in the building or if it’s a false alarm,” he said. “Every time I’ve canceled in the last five years, it’s been a false alarm. I don’t know whether that’s me getting lucky or just guessing right, but overall we’re doing pretty good.”

Tate said he understands the city needs a false alarm ordinance to cut down on officer overtime. He said he never cancels an alarm if there’s any doubt that it might not be false.

“I feel we really control ours the best we can,” he said. “We pretty much know what someone would have to go past to get to a certain area in the school. If we have one or two trips in an area, we know that’s impossible to trip that sensor without tripping another one before it. Every time we have an alarm go off, the next morning, we always send one of our techs out to see if we have a bad component in the system.”

While police try to work with businesses to solve obvious false alarm triggers, Stout said officers aren’t trained technicians and can’t solve every problem.

Stout said the ordinance aims at maximizing the efficiency of law enforcement.

Officers spend 15 to 45 minutes responding. After arriving at the scene, police must clear the building and wait for a business representative to arrive. Police are often called to the same business multiple times in one night.

“We send two officers to every alarm call and they spend about 15 minutes on each call,” Stout said. “When you times that by 3,500, that’s a lot of man hours. We’ve almost been able to cut that in half. We’ve been very pleased with the program so far.”

Fayetteville was one of the first cities in Northwest Arkansas to have a false alarm ordinance. Springdale and Rogers also require people to register their alarms.

Stout said police waive the penalty for first-time offenders. The department gives unregistered users a 10-day “grace period” to comply. After that, they may be fined $250. Residents and business owners may appeal the fine to a city panel, appointed by Tabor. The panel must consist of at least one alarm industry representative, a member of the Police Department and a resident.

“We usually don’t know if someone is complying until we respond to an alarm call,” Stout said.

The ordinance mandates suspension after the sixth false alarm call. Officers won’t respond to calls at businesses or residences placed on suspension until the property owner becomes compliant by repairing the faulty alarm.

Tabor said the department hasn’t had to suspend anyone.

“We usually try to work with people and be understanding,” he said. “If there’s any question, the benefit goes to the alarm holder.”