A local business owner asked the Pine Bluff Police Department to take a closer look at its plan to start charging homeowners and business owners in 2012 when police are dispatched by an alarm system for something that turns out to be a false alarm.
Mike Adam, who owns Cycle and Marine Supercenter on Camden Road, spoke during the Jan. 3 Pine Bluff City Council Public Safety Committee meeting to ask about the Police Department’s policy as to what constitutes a “false alarm call.”
Adam said he received a courtesy call from the department recently in which a police employee read to him a list of calls from 2011 that, if a similar call is received in 2012, would count as a false alarm and would result in a charge. Adam said he talked to two employees trying to get more clarity on the subject.
He disagreed that some of the calls should have been on the list. For example, he said there was a call where the responding officer didn’t find anything. However, Cycle and Marine employees later found a hole in the fence and that items had been stolen.
Adam listed other examples: wild dogs that Adam said he has called the Animal Control Department about in an attempt to address, people leaning up against the fence, trash blowing around that Adam said he has called the Street Department about, children purposely setting off the alarm and people climbing on the fence.
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Adam said, like the police, he might have assumed these calls were caused by alarm malfunctions and therefore what Adam would consider a true “false alarm call,” except that the company has cameras covering the lot and could look later to see what caused the alarm to go off.
“Like all legislation, it seems like a good idea, but the reality is that just because the police didn’t find entry or a cause of an alarm at the time, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a reason it went off, and maybe the perpetrator decided to leave before the police come,” Adam said, reading aloud a letter written by his wife, Jan Adam. “Criminals know about how long it will take for someone to answer the call.”
Adam said the company has had to investigate and locate stolen items themselves after police investigations were unsuccessful. He said he considers his alarm system and cameras an important part of protecting his business. Adam said he doesn’t understand why the police department would advise business owners and individuals to be proactive and have alarm systems, but then set up a system of fining for false alarms.
“Why would we do one more thing to antagonize property and business owners, the very people we want to attract to Pine Bluff?” Adam asked, noting that the last few years have been especially tough on business owners.
Adam asked the committee to reassess the policy and what methods will be used to determine what constitutes a false call.
Police Chief Brenda Davis-Jones said that there would be “no way” the police department would charge for the kind of scenarios that Adam was describing, but that business owners have to call and let the police department know the circumstances on a case-by-case basis.
Adam said he had called and talked to two different officers who had advised him that the list would count as false alarms. Davis-Jones advised him that if he has problems in the future, to call the chief’s office directly or talk to Wes ODonohue, the city’s network administrator who will be tasked with making the call as to whether a call is a false alarm.
“You’ve got understand why we do this, and I think the council recognizes that as much as I do. We’re having officers go and spend 30 or 40 minutes on false-alarm calls when they could be out being proactive and patrolling their particular area. Sometimes we’ve got to do something to cut that off. When people are out here not maintaining their burglar alarm systems that’s making it go off like this, when they’re leaving their cats inside their home — we had 400 calls last year to one lady who left her cat inside her house,” Davis-Jones said, characterizing the problem as a waste of time and resources.
Adam said he did not disagree that people should be charged in the cases that Davis-Jones was describing.