False Alarms Pose Security Risk to Officers

Two weeks ago, a burglar alarm for a building in Radcliffe Yard sounded and then stopped almost immediately.

But it wasn't a big deal for the police officer who responded--the alarm sounds every Sunday afternoon as the same employee heads into work.

The incident is one of an increasing number of repeat false alarms to which the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) finds itself responding.

Since January, HUPD has required officers to respond to and confirm every alarm--even if it resets immediately or someone calls in to say they set if off accidentally.

Such calls could be coerced, police officials say.

"Someone could be standing there with a gun to the caller's head," Sergeant James L. McCarthy says.

And while this policy change is meant to improve Harvard employees' safety, due to faulty alarms and employee errors, the policy is also placing police officers at unnecessary risk and wasting valuable patrol time, police officials say.

HUPD officials say the department has seen its calls for service increase dramatically since the policy change, to the point where the sheer number of alarms to which officers respond is now causing a drain on resources and response times and is even placing officers' lives in jeopardy.

Alarm calls are classified as Priority One, meaning they require an immediate response with lights and a siren. But police believe false alarms can needlessly place officers and pedestrians at risk as they try to maneuver through Cambridge's crowded streets.

In March of last year, HUPD responded to 71 alarm calls. This March, after the policy change, HUPD responded to 172 alarms. And that number is climbing.

In the first two weeks of April, police responded to 162 alarms.

The University has 268 alarms, all of which are monitored out of HUPD's Garden Street headquarters by a system called CONTINUUM, which went online in August.

Since he started overseeing the alarm systems in 1996, Charlie Mung, security systems coordinator for the University, the number of alarms installed on campus has increased dramatically.

"Basically, people are becoming more security conscious," he says.

But police say it is frustrating that those alarms so often are false.

False alarms have a variety of causes, including employees simply forgetting to turn off the alarm before entering their office--as is the case with Radcliffe Yard alarm--or entering the wrong access code.

HUPD spokesperson Peggy A. McNamara says "99.9 percent of those alarms are employee alarm error, accidental, defective alarm or an unknown cause."

When Mung notices a pattern of repeated alarm calls, he speaks with the manager of the building, who then discusses it with the employees who work in the building.

"Only about five or six percent [of the alarm calls] are defective equipment," Mung says. "The other percent are employee errors."

"The last time I remember a real alarm was many, many, many years ago," McNamara says.

Police confirm that it has been many years since the alarms discovered any criminal activity. In the most recent case, an alarm on the basement tunnel doors of the Center for European Studies resulted in police discovering a breaking-and-entering in progress.

The sheer volume of alarms also poses a danger to police officers who are lulled into a false sense of security.

"Sometimes the officers get frustrated," McNamara says. "Sometimes in a situation, we may come across repetitive call syndrome."

"Regardless of that possibility we need a Priority One response--particularly the panic alarms," she adds.

The alarms also tie up police who are needed for patrolling and responding to other calls--wasting money and manpower.

On the night of April 4, for example, HUPD received alarm calls at 7:51 p.m., 8 p.m. and 8:02 p.m.

In a little over 10 minutes, six out of about 15 officers on the night shift responded to alarms.

Regardless, police say responding to the alarms is part of their job and they will continue to do it well.

"Our response will never diminish," McNamara promises.

Harvard's problem is not unique. New technology that makes alarms more sensitive and easier to install has led to an explosion of burglar alarms, motion detectors and panic alarms nationwide--and with it has come an explosion of false alarms.

Over 80 percent of alarms nationwide are the result of human error, according to the National Burglar Alarm Association.

In Cambridge, the problem is even more acute than at Harvard. Alarm calls now make up more than half of the Cambridge Police Department's Priority One calls. Less than two percent of the calls uncover any criminal activity.