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Article: False Alarms Put Police Through Wringer; Negligence, Faulty Systems Keep County Officers on Run
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- November 7, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The alarm system at a Howard County armored car company
sounded 41 times last year, and police sped to the scene on each
occasion. But not one time did they find that a crime had been
committed.
The company, which police would not identify out of concern
that it might become a target for burglars, tied with the Terminal
Corp.'s warehouse in Jessup as the two locations with the greatest
number of false alarms last year, police said.
For businesses and homeowners, security systems increasingly
are considered a basic necessity in a world perceived to be
threatening. But police view the matter differently, including in
Howard County, where 98 percent of alarms are false.
Howard ...