Implementation of a new city ordinance concerning how NOPD officers handle false alarm calls will help to keep police free to answer more pressing calls, NOPD officials said.
The ordinance – which goes into effect on May 1, 2017 – also works to ensure that citizens and businesses have alarm systems that are working properly, and that alarm service providers are working with their customers to keep systems up to date and working properly.
“We want to make sure that police are responding to actual emergencies and not false alarm calls,” said Eric Melancon, deputy chief of staff with the NOPD.
According to 2016 NOPD statistics, 47,275 alarm items were created. Of these 40,096 were dispatched to officers for investigation and, of these, 180 were changed to another incident signal.
However, of the 40,096 dispatched alarm calls, 39,643 calls – or 98 percent – of these calls were considered false alarms. This means that upon inspection by police, no evidence was found to bring officers to believe that a crime had taken place.
“In each of these false alarm instances, police are responding to these calls,” Melancon said. “We want to make sure that people are penalized for this and work to change their behavior so that we have fewer false alarms happening on an annual basis. Every hour officers spend addressing a false alarm call is an hour where they are not on active patrol or an hour they aren’t able to respond to another emergency call.”
According to the ordinance, when police are dispatched and respond to an alarm that is deemed to be false at a location, the owner will receive a warning on the first offense. A second offense will bring a $75 fine. A third offense will see a $150 fine, while a forth offense will include a $150 fine and suspension of service in responding to false alarms at the address until the problem is rectified.
“We want to stress that this only applies to alarm calls where officers are dispatched and arrive on scene to investigate,” Melancon said. “If an alarm signal is sent and the owner is able to communicate with their provider that the alarm was indeed false before officers arrive at the location, those instances will not count toward their false alarm tally.”
These offenses are tallied for a calendar year, Melancon said, with the number resetting with the start of a new year once any fines are paid. He added that the count will begin with the implementation of the ordinance on May 1.
In addition, Melancon stressed that this will not affect police response to 911 emergency, fire alarms or panic alarm incidents.
“These apply to the automated motion alarms or burglar alarms that are constantly going off and pulling away valuable resources,” Melancon said. “There are a lot of folks who have alarms that work perfectly fine. We want to ensure that those people are receiving the proper response to their calls.”
NOPD Third District Commander Jeff Walls said that false alarms can come from a fault in the alarm system, a problem which can be rectified between the alarm service provider and the customer.
“A lot of times, it’s just minor errors or problems with wiring or other issues that can be fixed to correct the problem,” Walls said.
The Third District – which includes the Lakeview, Gentilly and West End communities, as well as Dillard University, Southern University of New Orleans, Delgado Community College, the University of New Orleans – saw the highest number of false alarm calls in the city in 2016. Of the 7,756 alarm calls in the district, 7,688 – or about 99 percent – were found to be false alarms.
In each of the NOPD’s eight police districts, no district had less than 98 percent of their alarm incidents in 2016 ended up being considered false alarms.
“When we get a call for an alarm, we respond as a priority call with the belief that someone has tripped the alarm with the intent of wrong doing at the location,” he said. “For our officers to get there and find out that nothing happened or that someone accidentally set off the alarm, that’s time our officers had to take away from being on patrol or working on a case or responding to other emergency calls. This is especially true for repeat offenders.”
Walls said that with the new ordinance, the first warning will hopefully help owners of faulty systems to make repairs before future offenses bring about monetary fines or loss of response service.
Melancon said that as the ordinance goes into effect, citizens and businesses will be able to register their alarm system for free with the city through a website which will be announced in the coming weeks.
“We want to make sure everyone is registered on the front end,” Melancon said. “However, on the first false alarm incident for a non-registered address, we will require that the system be registered. We also ask alarm companies to register with us as well. This helps us to keep a record of systems that may become problematic with numerous false alarm calls.”
Rather than seeing the ordinance as a punishment for those whose alarm systems may be faulty, Melancon said, the intent is to make sure that officers’ time is best spent responding to emergency calls.
“We want our citizens to be responsible and make sure their alarm systems are kept in working order,” Melancon said. “We also need to be able to best utilize our resources and make sure that the hours our officers are putting in to our police force are used to protect the citizens of New Orleans and not spent responding to this many false alarm calls on an annual basis. That is the goal of this ordinance.”