Police Services

Physical Address: 2221 Timberline Road, Fort Collins, CO 80525
Mailing Address: PO Box 580, Fort Collins, CO 80522-0580
Phone: (970)221-6540

SPOTLIGHT

Managed Alarm Program

Did you know that in 2007 . . . .

• Fort Collins police received over 3000 calls on burglars alarms;
• 98.5% of those alarms were false (meaning no crime took place);
• 220 hold up alarms were received of which 100% were false alarms;
• 100% of the 114 panic alarms received were also false;
• local and national data has shown that for years the false alarm rate is approximately 99%;
• false alarms are typically caused by poor alarm hardware, bad weather or operator error;
• alarm systems are private contracts between a private citizen and a private company;
• responding to false alarms takes officers away from other calls for service;
• it typically takes 2 officers approximately 20 minutes each to respond to a false alarm call; this is valuable time taken away from others in need; and
• if you have an emergency, the most effective way to get police response is to call 9-1-1;

Fort Collins Police Services began a 6-month pilot project in February to better align police resources to alarm responses. These minor operational modifications will be assessed at the end of the pilot project to determine the appropriate changes needed.

What this means to you is:

• Police will continue to respond to burglary, hold up and panic alarms;
• Police will respond to alarm calls as routine, non-urgent calls, unless additional information indicates a different response is necessary;
• The area officer will be sent to check on the alarm call;
• If the officer has additional knowledge (i.e. crime trends, witness/victim information, etc.) and determines additional officers are needed, they will be sent;
• Police will not respond when the monitoring company indicates someone is present without the proper code; and
• These operational changes in response protocol are minor in nature and will be undetected by the community yet allow more appropriate allocation of police response to better serve the community needs for other demands for service.

This pilot project will continue through the summer.

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Last Updated:
May-17-08 12:42 AM MDT

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