Floyd sheriff looking into fines for ‘false alarms’

Clark County

Discussion

September 5, 2009

Nearly 99 percent of alarm calls inadvertent

By MATT THACKER The News and Tribune Sat Sep 05, 2009, 07:33 PM EDT

As of Thursday, the Floyd County Sheriff’s Department had responded to 791 alarm calls this year, but only a few of those have been legitimate runs.

According to statistics compiled by the department, 98.9 percent of those calls turned out to be “false alarms.” Most were tripped inadvertently because of pets, user error or faulty equipment, police say.

That has Sheriff Darrell Mills mulling whether he should ask the Floyd County Commissioners to pass an ordinance allowing them to fine residents and businesses who repeatedly set off their security alarms.

“It can tie up your manpower,” Mills said. “We’re kind of doing the work of a private company. Alarm services like ADT (Security Services) call us to go check it out, but the taxpayers are ultimately eating the costs of that.”

Mills said, on average, it takes 13 minutes for an officer to respond to an alarm call and check that everything is OK. That adds up to nearly 170 hours Floyd County officers have spent this year responding to false alarms.

That does not include the cost of gasoline for officers to drive to the location. Mills said that if a panic alarm at a business is set off, they may send several officers to respond.

“I’m torn between whether I even want to ask the commissioners are not,” Mills said. “As the population of the county grows, the problem will increase. You have to offset those costs somehow.”

He hopes more publicity to the problem will raise awareness and make the fines unnecessary.

Mills said alarm systems can be beneficial, but he hopes business and home owners will ensure their systems are working properly and that anyone in the building knows the alarm code.

“We don’t mind responding, but what we don’t want to get into is going to the same home or same business on a routine basis because of a faulty alarm system or human error,” he said.

Mills said he may request a fine of $50 if they are called to a location more than five times in one month for any reason other than weather. The fine would increase with each false alarm.

While New Albany also has no ordinance on the books about fines for false alarms, most of the police departments in Clark County do.

Clark County, Jeffersonville and Clarksville all passed similar ordinances in 1992 and 1993 allowing fines for too many false alarm calls. The fourth and fifth false alarm in one year can result in a $25 fine. Each false alarm after the fifth one can result in a $50 fine.

“I haven’t enforced it since I’ve been sheriff,” Clark County Sheriff Danny Rodden said. “It is something I’ve thought about enforcing because we’ve had a lot of complaints about it.”

Rodden said most people will try to fix the problem when it is brought to their attention.

Steve Bush, president of the Floyd County Commissioners, said he would be willing to look into such an ordinance if the sheriff requests it. He said he would talk to local business owners to get their input as well.

Bush said the commissioners have never talked about the issue but police officers have.

“As a police officer, it’s been brought up many times,” said Bush, who is also a detective with the New Albany Police Department. “If it’s brought up (to the commissioners), we’ll take the public input. If it’s the right thing to do, it’s obviously something we’ll do. If not, we won’t.”

Bush said police officers can become complacent if the same business sets off the alarm frequently. Police may not respond as quickly because they assume it is another false alarm.

Mills said they respond to every alarm call, and he places some of the blame on the alarm companies.

He said sometimes the person will call their alarm company to tell them it was set off accidentally, but the alarm company never notifies police. In that instance, Mills said he thinks the alarm company should pay the fine.