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9.13.19 – CBS 46 – Sandy Springs, Ga. –

Sandy Springs Police said their new verification ordinance designed to cut down on false alarm calls has already caused a drastic decrease in calls.

The city’s true verification ordinance went into effect June 19.

Sandy Springs is the first city in Georgia to require alarm companies to verify a burglar or intruder alarm by using audio, video, or an in-person verification before notifying 911.

According to Sandy Springs police, before the ordinance they responded to about 10,000 alarm calls each year with an average of a 110 calls per week, and more than 99 percent were false.

Captain Dan Nable knew after doing research in other cities that this ordinance would be successful.

“We are down to 28 calls per week. That substantially reduces time officers waste going back and forth to a false calls. Now we can improve the time that officer spends investigating any crime or identifying suspects that are actually committing crimes get them arrested and off the street,” Nable said.

January 1 – June 18, 2019:

  • Total alarms – 2666 – these are alarms that made it to ChatComm. Does not include alarms that failed the test in the call center
  • False alarms – 2656 – true alarms include any suspicious activity that resulted in conformation of criminal activity regardless of the nature of the activity
  • Failure rate — 99.63%
  • Average alarms per week – 110
  • Total alarms – 371 – these are alarms that made it to ChatComm. Does not include alarms that failed the test in the call center
  • False alarms – 367 – true alarms include any suspicious activity that resulted in conformation of criminal activity regardless of the nature of the activity
  • Failure rate – 98.92%
  • Average alarms per week – 28.6

“We’re still at 99.2% of alarms are false even now, we expected we could eliminate most of those false alarms we would eliminate those calls,” Nable said.

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