A solution to false alarms?

Have you ever been driving in traffic and seen a police car rapidly go by and wondered where they were going? Or seen someone drive through a red light or commit some other relatively obvious violation and the police car nearby didn’t stop them, but drove on? Chances are they were going to a call, which could be a valid domestic situation, a burglary in progress, or quite often an alarm call.

Responding to alarms is accepted as a part of the job for police and law enforcement agencies. But here’s the problem: more than 99 percent of all alarms called in are false alarms, activated because of a bad system, a faulty sensor, employee error, or some other technological glitch.

Last year, Kent officers responded to over 4,000 alarms, of which less than 1 percent was valid. An actual apprehension and arrest was made on just one case last year as the result of an intrusion alarm.

Some of Kent’s businesses have several false alarms each day.

Obviously this is not a good situation for the police department or for the businesses. We have been working to increase the productive time for our officers to actively patrol and problem-solve by working with residents. Running off to false alarms, which can take up to an hour of driving; checking the building, waiting for a key holder, and follow-up paperwork is not very respectful of the rest of the city’s taxpayers. And, officers driving through traffic, either “Code 3” with lights and siren, or faster than normal to respond to what are, 99 percent of the time, false alarms, is not consistent with officer safety.

Some departments, like the one in Bellingham, have instituted what is called “verified response.” That means they only go to intrusion-alarm calls that have been checked and verified as valid by a third party. A third party can be a security guard or a key holder for the business. Other cities, like Des Moines, have created a registry of alarms that require businesses to pay a fee, get registered, and meet certain guidelines. They also impose fines if there are too many false alarms. Both result in far fewer false alarms, but we have not chosen to take this route.

Here in Kent, we want to achieve the goal of reducing false alarms, but have worked to act consistently with the mayor and City Council’s direction to work with business instead of imposing restrictions on them. We also dislike building additional bureaucracy, so fines and registries don’t appeal to us.

So, starting this month, we are looking at places that have two or more false intrusion alarms in a month. The places on this list will receive a letter stating they need to figure out why they are getting false alarms and to get it fixed. If they need assistance to investigate and solve the false alarm problem, we will offer our crime-prevention resources to work with them. If there are more false alarms, we will place them on a “verified” list so that the dispatch center will only send an officer after the alarm is checked by a security guard or key holder first.

This hybrid approach is not too extreme, doesn’t require more staff, and does not place a financial burden on Kent businesses. That’s the way we like it.

This policy does not apply to panic or holdup alarms. We are hoping that this new practice will help keep our officers safe and effective, create a better climate for businesses already stressed by our difficult economic times, and be respectful of our taxpayers.