Committee seeks false alarm solution

By Marcus McClain

NEA Town Courier

The Blytheville Police and Fire Committee continued to discuss a solution to false burglar alarms throughout the city in their Tuesday meeting. This is a discussion that has spanned the past two years.

Police chief Ross Thompson reported in last month’s meeting that of the 2,397 alarm calls received in 2022, only .4% were true. Because of the high false alarm rate, Thompson previously stated that police responses have been dialed back. The committee’s goal is to reduce the number of false alarms, and in turn, ensure that police are responding to every alert.

To do this, discussions have centered around placing more responsibility on the home owners. Under the current city ordinance, alarm users are permitted three false alarms per month with a $25 fine starting at the fourth. This gives users a total of 36 false alarms per year without any penalty from the city. Local alarm company owners were in attendance Tuesday and all agreed that this number is lenient.

Discussions prompted the idea of limiting this number to six per year with a $25 fine beginning on the seventh. Every following false alarm would increase by $25 up to the ninth violation. Every following violation would be a fine of $75.

“It’s a contract, councilman Matt Perrin said. “Saying that yes, our police department will respond to your alarms, but it is your job to make sure you’re not wasting the department's time. And that you really need them when the alarm is going off. Just like with most cities, it puts the onus on the homeowner to make sure the alarms are in working order.”

Before passing any adjusted ordinance through committee however, committee chair Barbara McAdoo-Brothers requested to continue the conversation with local alarm company owners. She also suggested having a three-month reading before a proposed ordinance is passed.

“We’re wanting to do the right thing, that’s why I asked the [alarm system owners] to take a look at it. We want to make sure the numbers are good and we give the people enough time to realize what their responsibility is, as well as the businesses,” McAdoo-Brothers said.

Thompson later added, “If we come up with a proposed ordinance, I’d like for them to see it and give us their feedback on it as well.

“We’ll also have things that come up with the schools. [concerning false alarms], they offend a lot. They have lots of doors and activities going on all the time. And there’s somebody in there after hours, somebody may not realize it and it may trip an alarm. So we may look at some type of exceptions for public services like this.”

Despite this being a nagging issue, Thompson also noted that he is still in favor of citizens and businesses having alarm systems. “We do not want to discourage anybody from using alarms. We promote alarms because we think it’s the best way to go,” Thompson said.

Making contact with key holders following an alarm being triggered has also been an issue. Owners such as Donnie Wright with NET and Danny Sutton with Silent Security were also in attendance to detail their roles in resolving the issue.

“A lot of people don’t answer their phones,” Wright said. “That’s one of the problems we saw with my guys, when we looked this over. One thing we can do a better job of is putting our monitoring company as a contact in everybody’s phone. We’ve started doing that so that people know, ‘hey this is the alarm company.’ instead of just a spam call from wherever.”

John Lloyd with Silent Security also added, “We try to constantly update our customer's contact list. We want to have not only someone who can confirm if they’re out of town, but can come let police in if there really is a [burglar].”

Drafting a letter to local customers concerning any fine increases was also mentioned. The issue was tabled for further review and is expected to be revisited in April’s meeting.