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Virginia Police Look to Cut Down False Alarms

Police in communities across the nation struggle with persistent false alarm calls, and the Virginia departments are no different.

Albemarle, VA, police have three patrol shifts, with the evening squad of 24, including supervisors, being the largest.

They cover 726 square miles, so it’s a chore in itself to adequately patrol county roads with a full squad.

False alarms on average can take two officers out of the loop for a half-hour. Such calls often can last an hour.

“It’s a drain on our manpower,” Albemarle police Lt. Todd Hopwood said recently.

Charlottesville and county police are looking for ways to curtail the number of false alarms and improve methods of collecting fees repeat offenders have to pay.

“It’s very, very time consuming, and very frustrating at times,” said Sgt. Peter Mainzer Jr., who heads the Albemarle police patrol division.

With so many alarms turning out to be false, it can also be dangerous for officers, Mainzer said. They “don’t want to get lulled into a lackadaisical approach to it.”
The city and county have ordinances against repeat false alarm offenders.

In Charlottesville, there is a $100 fee after three false alarms in a 12-month period. There also is a $25 fee for those who fail to turn off an alarm within an hour of being notified.

Charlottesville police collected $41,800 in false alarm fees in fiscal 2008 (the total included some fees from the prior year, too), according to Lt. David W. Shifflett Jr.
In Albemarle, two false alarms in a 12-month period can result in a fee, the amount of which is determined on a case-by-case basis. Fee amounts collected were not available.
County police have struggled to collect on false alarm fees, Hopwood said.

The department is working on a grant that could fix that problem, he said. The competitive grant would bring in money from the federal stimulus package and would allow the department to buy computer software aimed at tracking such calls. The grant also could help the department establish a program aimed at cutting down on false alarms, Hopwood said.

Charlottesville police are also looking into “various software products” to help improve the department’s ability to track false alarms and collect fees, Shifflett said in an e-mail.

False alarm-specific programs can work.

The Kansas City (Mo.) Police Department won an award from the False Alarm Reduction Association for a program it instituted.

In 2000, the department had 51,426 false alarm calls. It eventually created a program that tracked false alarms and instituted education classes for repeat offenders among other things. By 2006, false alarm calls had fallen to 20,911.