11.23.23 – Fox 23 – CATOOSA, Okla.
The City of Catoosa is requiring alarm system owners to have a permit due to a large amount of false alarm calls.
FOX23 spoke with Jennifer Swarer, Captain Patrol Commander at the Catoosa Police Department on Tuesday.
She said stats over the last two years on residential and commercial alarms average out to about 95 to 98% false alarm calls.
Swarer said dispatch will have a list of everyone who has permits.
“When the alarm call comes in if there is a permit there they will send us,” she said. “If there is not an alarm permit there, the alarm company will contact the owners of the business or the residential individuals.”
She says after looking at those statistics they decided to have the alarm permits to cut down on the false alarms.
“One of the main reason is because we were running to several different alarms every night, sometimes it’s the same business, sometimes it’s the same residents,” Swarer said. “We’ll get there and it’s just a glitch in the system which therefore takes us away from going to another call that might be a priority over the alarm. And/or it could just be that we had to go from one side of town to the other side of town and the alarm is a false alarm because of the alarm company.”
Swarer said the alarm permits will ensure their resources are being used on patrolling the rest of the neighborhoods.
“The only way that we will still respond is if their neighbor calls in and says hey I see somebody breaking in,” she said. “Were not just going to not go to that because obviously we have somebody who’s there and witnessing it in progress.”
She said the alarm permits basically help ensure they aren’t running from one side of town to the other, where it could still end up being a false alarm.
“But at least we know at this point the alarm companies have been checked, the alarm systems have been checked, and we’re not just going to run on an older alarm system that may have some fault in it,” she said.
Swarer said they have reached out to people letting them know their alarm system is having issues, but they are still getting the alarms. When they do that, it delays their response time to other calls that may be an emergency, she said.
The alarm permits are effective Jan. 1, 202. All residential and business alarms will require a permit for continued police response.
You can purchase them through the City of Catoosa at City Hall or through the police department.