County looking at accountability
The amount of information the public really needs to have was one question brought up Monday when the county board of supervisors was asked to consider holding business owners accountable for false alarms.
Dave McQuillen, who claims 41 years of experience in law enforcement, talked with the supervisors about the number of times sheriff’s deputies respond to business alarms, only to find the alarm was false. He said he reads of them often in the sheriff’s report in the newspaper.
He explained that any alarm activation is serious because a deputy must always respond assuming the alarm is “live.” He told of a personal experience in Texas where officers responded several times to false alarms at a particular location. He talked with the owners about the alarm system but made no progress. Finally, officers responded to an alarm and they were ambushed. One officer was killed; another was injured.
False alarms come frequently from 209 Main in Paton and from some banks. They’re usually set by a delivery person or staff, and McQuillen said that’s “inexcusable.” “If the officer is clear down in Greenbrier Township and there’s an alarm in Paton, he’s risking his life to get there because he doesn’t know what type of situation there is, and he’s risking the life of other people trying to get there,” McQuillen said. He pointed out that the alarms are often toward the end of a night deputy’s shift, adding to the risk of an intense drive to respond to an alarm.
He recommended the board adopt some measure to hold business owners accountable, perhaps levying a fine, for multiple false alarms.
Sheriff Steve Haupert attends all the supervisors’ meetings. He said he didn’t ask McQuillen to speak to the board, but he is supportive of the idea. He said that in addition to business alarms, more and more residences have alarms. “I’ve talked to several banks, as well as 209 Main about the situation, and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. It probably needs to be addressed from a higher entity than what I do,” Haupert said.
Supervisor Guy Richardson agreed with the idea of charging businesses for the service of responding to alarms that are false. Haupert said he has considered rewriting the 28E agreements for law enforcement in county towns, with a fee charged to the city. He suggested maybe city councils would bring pressure on businesses to train employees better in the use of their security system.
Haupert said the alarms at 209 Main are usually between 4 and 6 am and are triggered by delivery crews. The bank alarms are typically at 6 am. Haupert said, “It’s real easy if you want to harm a police officer or a deputy, they (perpetrators) could follow the schedule. I’ve thought that I need to report because people need to know what’s going on, but there are things that probably should not be reported. I struggle with that. Everyone has the right to know, but …”
Guy Richardson finished Haupert’s sentence, “… but if they’re looking for some way to do wrong, that helps them with that.”
“When those alarms come in the deputy is getting tired, and driving a distance at a high rate of speed, and knowing that he might have something on the other end he has to deal with… it takes a lot out of an officer. It takes a lot of mental capacity,” McQuillen said.
There may be 10 false alarms at a business, but according to Haupert, “you can’t become complacent. Every call matters. It might be to a residence that you’ve been called to nine times in the past week. That may be the time that they need you to protect them or a child. You talk about this. When you’re asked to go, you go.”
The supervisors asked Haupert to set up a meeting to discuss what steps to take.
The city of Jefferson already has in place that fines businesses or residences when there is a system or detector malfunction. The fine is $25 for a third false alarm, $50 for a fourth, and $75 for each subsequent false alarm in a calendar year. However, according to police chief Dave Morlan, most of the time the alarms are due to human error, or to something hanging from the ceiling that gets blown by the ventilation system, triggering the alarm. For example, an unsecured helium balloon can trigger an alarm.
(Editor’s note: GreeneCountyNewsOnline publishes excerpts from the sheriff’s and Jefferson police department’s daily reports. Information such as false alarms and unlocked business doors is not published [and never has been] for the reasons Haupert named. Names of complainants are not generally published, nor are specific addresses unless a search warrant has been carried out. Responsible community journalism includes weighing the public’s need to know against the possible harm that could come from full disclosure.)
