New Ordinance Proposed—

Police Hope To

Reduce False Alarms   

By Andrew Gorosko

In 2007, police responded to 1,883 alarms while on patrol. Of that number, only five proved to be actual emergencies warranting a police response.

While that ratio of false alarms to true emergencies may seem to be astonishing, the year 2007 was not out of the ordinary in terms of that statistic, according to Police Chief Michael Kehoe.

The overwhelming majority of alarms to which police respond are false alarms, he stressed. Police respond to the types of alarms that have a potential criminal aspect, such as burglary alarms, hold-up alarms, and panic alarms. Such alarms emanate from businesses such as banks, stores, factories, and warehouses, as well as from homes and schools.

When police receive a burglary alarm, two officers are dispatched to the scene from their patrol sectors to investigate. If it is a false alarm, as it is 99 times out of 100, the two officers typically spend between 20 and 40 minutes each in completing the investigation, Chief Kehoe said.

However, there are some instances when alarms alert police to actual emergencies in progress, he noted.

At 10:59 pm on December 19, police received a burglar alarm via Sonitrol Corp, alerting them of a problem at the closed Church Hill Gas Stop gas station at 47 Church Hill Road, so they went there to investigate.

On arriving, police found that someone had broken a large hole through the exterior wall of the building about two feet above the ground.

Realizing that there might be a burglar inside the building, town police called for aid from state police who brought a police dog with them to investigate the premises. The dog found an intruder inside the small building.

Police then arrested one man who was inside the gas station, plus another man parked in a vehicle nearby who was allegedly aiding the man in the burglary.

Of that incident, Chief Kehoe said, “It was a good catch,” demonstrating how burglar alarms can be effective.

“We always remind our officers, ‘You never know when you will get the real one, the true one,’”  he said.   

But all too often, due to human error or alarm system malfunctions, police find themselves responding to false alarms, he said.

To better address the problems posed by such false alarms, the Police Commission is proposing to the Legislative Council a revised town alarm ordinance. That 16-page ordinance would supercede an existing five-page ordinance that took effect in February 1997.

Francis Pennarola, the Legislative Council’s vice chairman, said he expects that the council’s Ordinance Committee will soon be reviewing the proposed revised alarm ordinance.

In its proposed revised ordinance, the Police Commission states that the law would be designed to “encourage alarm users and alarm companies to properly use and maintain the operational effectiveness of alarm systems in order to improve the reliability of alarm systems, and reduce or eliminate false alarms.”

The proposed ordinance would cover the alarms intended to summon the police and firefighters. The law would require the registration of alarms, establish certain fees, provide penalties for false alarms, establish an administrative system, and set conditions for the suspension of emergency responses or the revocation of alarm registrations. The Police Commission endorsed the proposed alarm ordinance revisions last August.

The proposed revised town ordinance is broader in scope than the existing alarm ordinance, Chief Kehoe said. The current ordinance is focused on the levying or fines for the owners of alarm systems that emit repeated false alarms, he noted.

Several thousand local alarm systems have been registered with the police department, but many of those systems are now inactive, Chief Kehoe said.

Robert Berkins, the records manager for the police department, estimates that approximately 3,500 alarm systems have been registered with the town over the years.

In a typical year, the town collects approximately $6,000 in penalties levied for false alarms, Mr Berkins said. That represents the fines levied for roughly 150 false alarms. Such fines start with the fourth false alarm from an alarm system.

The large majority of false alarms involve some type of human error or some type of alarm system malfunction, he said.

Most people pay the fines for false alarms after receiving a mailed notice to pay such a fine, he said.

The problem with false alarms is national in scope, occurring wherever alarms are in use, Mr Berkins noted. “It’s an ongoing problem…a nationwide problem,” he said.

Law enforcement agencies have addressed the issue of false alarms for many years, Chief Kehoe said.

The more people who handle a given alarm system, the more potential that there is for that system to emit false alarms, he said. The proposed revised alarm ordinance describes the responsibilities of alarm system users, among others, the police chief said.

Mr Berkins said that alarm system owners who experience problems with their alarms need to have their alarm system installers or maintainers set up the alarm systems correctly to eliminate false alarms.

The proposed revised alarm ordinance would create a system of progressively increasing fines for frequent offenders to deter such false alarms from occurring, Chief Kehoe said.

“It’s a touchy subject in the community…It’s a very sensitive matter,” Chief Kehoe said of penalties imposed for repeated false alarms.

Of the police staff-hours spent on false alarms, Chief Kehoe said, “It’s mind-boggling when people think about how much time we spend,” responding to false alarms.

“We’re trying to be more efficient,” he said.