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Crime & Safety

City Aims to Reduce False Burglar Alarms

Nearly all burglar alarm calls in Redmond last year were false.

The plans to review the city’s false burglar alarm program to try to cut down on the hundreds of false alarms officers respond to each year.

Although the number of false alarms has dropped 63 percent since 2000, according to department records, officers still responded to 661 false alarms in 2010, mostly at commercial properties.

In 2010, 99 percent of all burglar alarm calls were false, said police spokesman Jim Bove.

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“These numbers are still high,” he said. “We want to see how we can decrease these numbers even more.”

Last month, Police Chief Ron Gibson proposed the review to the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, which expressed interest in exploring changes to a program that has not been overhauled since 1999. 

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Hank Myers, chair of the Public Safety Committee, agrees that the issue of false alarms wastes valuable city resources. Patrol officers spent more than 400 hours responding to them last year, not including time put in by dispatch and support services to process each call.

“It’s more of an inconvenience than a problem,” Myers said. 

The current policy includes a security system registration program and penalty charges for false alarms based on the number of responses each year. The first false alarm is free, but the second false alarm from the same property warrants a $25 fine, which increases by $25 for each additional false alarm.

After the sixth false alarm, police suspend responses to security alarms from that property for 90 days.  

Even though there is no record of repeat offenders with six or more false alarms, Myers said the policy of no police response still makes him uncomfortable. He hopes a revised program can include a greater emphasis on educating the public on the issue and proper training of residents and businesses with alarm systems.

The Public Safety Committee expects more outdated policies like this to be brought before them for review this year as Gibson, who has served Redmond for less than a year, continues to review city policies for ways to improve customer service, Myers said. “It’s almost like a spring cleaning,” Bove said.

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