By Valerie Kalfrin, The Tampa Tribune
Tampa, Florida -- At a business on Dale Mabry Highway, an employee unintentionally triggers the burglar alarm by not leaving during the seconds it takes to set. Across town in a private home, a floating balloon left over from a birthday party sets off a motion detector. Police are sent to investigate.
Later, a thunderclap rattles the loose alarm sensors on the windows of a pet shop, dispatching police again.
False alarms caused by human error, improper installation and faulty equipment cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year, according to the Police Foundation in Washington.
To lessen the drain on resources and tax dollars, police organizations and alarm companies have researched ways to drastically reduce persistent false alarms.
Some departments are reluctant to adopt the changes, fearing that residents would object to higher fines and possible suspension of police response for too many violations. But alarm experts say that 80 percent of false alarms are caused by only 20 percent of alarm users. The overwhelming majority of the abusers are commercial establishments with dozens of violations, not the average homeowner whose alarm goes off accidentally a few times a year.
Last year, Tampa police, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office responded to 116,218 false alarms. That’s about 318 a day, records show. Hillsborough deputies handled 60,427 false alarms last year, which was 97 percent of their alarm calls. Pinellas deputies handled 22,163 false alarms last year, which was 98 percent of their alarm calls. Tampa police handled 33,628 false alarms last year, 78 percent of their alarm calls, records show.
“It’s a waste of time,” Tampa Police Chief Stephen Hogue said.
The city charges $40 for each false alarm after the first three in the life of the system, but those with the highest number of false alarms have not paid their fines for years, officials said. The situation has grown so bad that the city recently hired a collection agency, Progressive Financial Services, to collect more than $1 million in false-alarm fines.
The top 10 abusers in Tampa are businesses. They range from the Silver Dollar Food Store on North 40th Street, also known as Dura Food Mart, which owes $5,880 in fines for 147 alarms since 1988, to the Burger King on West Hillsborough Avenue that owes $3,920 for 98 false alarms since 1993, police records show.
A National Issue
Police Foundation President Hubert Williams estimates 10 percent to 25 percent of all calls for police service nationwide are false alarms, roughly 38 million calls a year.
A glut of false alarms can hinder police response. Consider the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., police, which retired Deputy Chief Glen Mowrey said handled 104,656 false alarms when he was working there in 1995.
“If you’ve got that many alarm calls, you’re going to wind up stacking some other calls, so instead of 15 minutes to respond, it could take an hour,” Mowrey said.
Officers would be diverted from alarm calls in an emergency, Mowrey said. But even day to day, there is a drain on resources.
“When you’ve got officers spending that much time on nonproductive work, it limits how much time you can be proactive in other areas, such as community policing,” he said.
Depending on the agency, one or two officers respond to each call to check whether the property is secure. On average, this takes 20 minutes. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said its average is about 22 minutes.
If the alarm does not reset, or authorities cannot easily determine whether the property is safe, they must wait for an alarm company representative or the property owner to arrive, which can take as long as 90 minutes.
“There are situations where we sit around waiting for somebody to show up,” Hillsborough sheriff’s Cpl. Rick Eldridge said.
Tampa police dispatch two officers to each alarm. With officers earning a median hourly wage of $22, false alarms cost the city about $500,000 last year in salaries alone. That’s enough to hire 13 rookie police officers, records show.
False alarms also create officer safety issues, police say.
Responding to repeated false alarms at the same location can lull police into a false sense of security, causing them to let their guard down for a real burglary, said Tampa police Maj. Jane Castor of District 2 in northeast Tampa.
Alarm Industry Offers Advice
The alarm industry also isn’t happy about the high rate of false alarms.
“We don’t want to reach a point where we’re overburdening the resources of our law officers,” said Ray Yauchler, director-at-large of the Alarm Association of Florida and president of Active Security Co. in St. Petersburg. “We don’t want to see a very valuable tool taken away from our clients.”
The Alarm Industry Research and Educational Foundation teamed up with the International Association of Chiefs of Police in 1997 to research and write a nationwide report issued two years later about alarm response management and best practices to reduce false alarms.
The report recommended a responsible alarm ordinance with key elements such as:
Mowrey, the retired Charlotte-Mecklenberg deputy chief, is a committee chairman with the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He helped craft Charlotte’s new alarm ordinance, which dropped the number of real and false-alarm calls from more than 106,000 in 1995 to about 62,000 last year.
Charlotte used escalating fines reaching $500 for more than 10 false alarms, Mowrey said. If a person doesn’t pay the fine within 30 days, officers no longer respond to an alarm call from that property.
Usually fewer than 1 percent of alarm users reach the level of suspended service, according to the report by the police chiefs association.
But Hillsborough County Sheriff Cal Henderson and Tampa Police Chief Hogue are hesitant to suspend response to locations with repeated false alarms.
“We’d have to have some legal authority not to respond,” Hogue said.
Hillsborough’s new ordinance, which goes into effect Oct. 1, stipulates “we don’t have to respond, and it is a recommendation from the industry, but they’re not the sheriff or the police chief, who has to respond to the citizens,” Eldridge said.
Money Owed And Consequences
Hillsborough is owed about $300,000 in unpaid alarm fines, Eldridge said. The current ordinance charges $25 per alarm after the fourth in a year. The new ordinance has escalating fines starting at $75 after the third false alarm.
If alarm users ignore the fines, they will receive a lien on their property, which prevents them from selling it until they satisfy the lien.
“We needed teeth in the ordinance,” Eldridge said. “People just don’t pay, and you don’t send police officers out to collect fines.”
The Pinellas ordinance allows fees up to $500 or up to 60 days in jail for five or more false alarms within 12 months, sheriff’s Sgt. Tim Goodman said. But the sheriff’s office must prove the alarm was triggered because of negligence or improper maintenance.
“We don’t have any outstanding debt because we’re really not citing them,” Goodman said. Instead, community policing officers work one-on- one with repeated false-alarm abusers and their alarm companies to fix the problem.
In Tampa, the city accepts cancellations of calls from alarm companies, Hogue said. It also requires alarm users to register their alarms, but the registration is contact information for whom to call when the alarm goes off, not a permit.
The biggest fault with the ordinance is it lacks consequences to spur people to fix their alarm systems, Hogue said.
Tampa’s fine is meant to emphasize the seriousness of diverting officers from nonemergency calls, Assistant City Attorney Kirby Rainsberger said.
But the message seems lost.
“If you don’t pay the bill, nothing happens,” said Bishop Micheal Lewis of Harvest Fellowship Bible Church, which records show owes Tampa $5,080 in false-alarm fines. “Unlike your light bill or your water bill, you’re not in fear of something being turned off.”
Too many parishioners had keys to the church at 3800 N. Nebraska Ave., Lewis said. The debt has gone unpaid because the payroll for the private preschool and elementary school, among other expenses, took priority.
“We dropped the ball,” Lewis said.
Other business owners dispute the bills. Records show Diad Hasan, who owns Dura Food Mart, bought the business in September 2003. Hasan said he is not responsible for the previous owner’s debt.
The police department said if an owner purchases only the assets of the business, the new owner is not liable for the debts. If it stipulates “purchasing the business,” the owner is liable.
Harold “Cool Gator” Williams, owner of Gator Enterprise Sportswear, owes $5,640 in fines for alarms at his business’s former location at 3708 N. 29th St.
Williams said drug dealers hiding their stashes in his burglar bars, or kicking his door to retaliate against him for speaking to police, triggered most alarms. He wants the police to take responsibility for not running the loiterers off his property.
“I won’t give them a dime,” he said. “If I felt like it was my fault, I would set up a payment plan.”
Hubert Williams from the Police Foundation said residents and businesses often are upset by any attempts “to tax and regulate something they are using to protect their family and property.”
But there must be some compromise.
“The city’s not following through,” Williams said. “If you got a ticket for a red light, they issue a summons, a request, for you to be in court. If you failed, there would be a demand, a warrant.”
The city has sued only a few alarm abusers. Rainsberger says that’s because the cost is high - about $500 in court costs and attorney fees. Those who owe thousands of dollars would be worth pursuing in court, Rainsberger said, but the city has not.
“We haven’t made it a priority,” he said.
The False Alarm Reduction Association of Rockville, Md., says tackling false alarms should be a cooperative effort among the alarm industry, alarm users and law enforcement.
The industry has instituted several changes to address false alarms, said Yauchler, of the Alarm Association of Florida. This year, Gov. Jeb Bush signed industry-supported legislation requiring training every two years for alarm technicians in reducing false alarms.
Combining Tactics
Hillsborough’s new ordinance does not register alarms. But Yauchler advocates registration so companies can track how many false alarms their customers have and remedy their problems.
“Every alarm company ought to have a list of the top 10 offenders, and just go at it until it’s done,” he said.
The Police Foundation suggests placing more of the burden on alarm companies by computing the number of false alarms per company and advertising that to the community. Law enforcement also can conduct a security audit of every business with an alarm problem, charge about $500 for the report and penalize the business if it doesn’t make repairs.
Some Florida jurisdictions have reduced their false alarms using tactics recommended by the International Association of Chiefs of Police study.
Indian River County uses escalating fines, from $50 for the third false alarm to $250 for the fifth or more. Every alarm must be registered, for $30 annually. The registration fee is waived for any site that is false- alarm free for a year, said Sgt. Kyle King, the false-alarm administrator.
The sheriff’s office suspends the alarm permit for those who don’t pay the fines, which carries an additional $250 penalty, King said.
Any owner with more than four false alarms in a year must attend a false-alarm awareness school held once a month, King said.
The combination of education and fines seems to work: The sheriff’s office recorded 3,309 false alarms last year, down from more than 10,000 in 1998, King said.
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office in Gainesville reduced alarms by about 50 percent using similar means, said Lt. Jim Troiano, a department spokesman.
They have graduated fines, from $25 for the first alarm to $400 for the ninth or more. If the property owner doesn’t have a permit for the alarm, there is an additional $200 fee. To get the permit, people must undergo instruction in how to use their alarm correctly.
These measures caused a reduction in alarms from 9,534 in 1999 to 3,339 last year, Troiano said.
In addition, the agency will cancel response to alarm if it is known to be a malfunctioning system - a decision a supervisor makes, Troiano said.