AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — The Amarillo Police Department has changed how officers respond to specific alarm calls.
According to officials, the new policy aims to improve the department’s effectiveness by minimizing disruptions caused by false alarms while increasing the chances of burglars getting caught.
APD said about 99% of alarms are false. In 2023, more than 8,000 calls were false alarms. This has delayed responses to genuine emergencies and in-progress events requiring a police response.
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“We found that in 99% of those cases, it’s a false alarm. It’s, you know, the wind blew something, or that the cat set the alarm off, or something that wasn’t a burglar. And so in order to catch more burglars, we want to go to more burglar alarms where there’s somebody present,” said Amarillo Police Chief Martin Birkenfeld.
The change will affect police calls between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., the busiest time of day. APD says the Amarillo Emergency Communication Center will dispatch officers when the caller provides verified information about an unauthorized person at the location. The caller could be from an alarm company or the property owner or resident and can verify with video surveillance from systems that have live feeds like doorbell cameras.