Sunday, August 14, 2011
False Alarm leads to False Arrest
For one unfortunate individual having a prior criminal conviction and living in a Personal Care Home in a northern suburb of Pittsburgh Pa..had some bad consequences when a fire alarm system started falsing and instead of the fire dept silencing the alarm and immediately calling me to come and check it and find the problem instead they reset it and ended up coming back several more times till fire dept chief got mad and had this resident arrested for causing a false alarm by pulling and activating the manual pull station on the system and since the care home is full of individuals who suffer from Bi polar and other psychotic conditions getting some one they do not like out of the home was easy by lying to the fire chief as to who set the alarm off.
Unfortunately though it never happened a station was never pulled.As you can clearly see all the dust around the hex key you must remove.
The Problem started in the early morning when the first fire alarm went off the fire dept should have silenced the system and then had home owner call me to reset and fix it the problem being with conventional analog systems unless a pull station has been activated you need to see which detector is in alarm by looking for a locked in red LED light or an activated pull station which is clearly different looking than when it is in its normal state.
well they did not do this they reset system and I receive no phone call several more false alarms again I get no phone call. Hello who is in charge of the situation? after the 3rd alarm the old panel is now going bonkers and it looks like a pull station was pulled. Wrong only way a pull station in this situation would have been pulled is the panel would not reset all pull stations lock into position and need to be manually reset with a key or opened with an Allen wrench and reset which in this case never happened. So no pull station was ever pulled,because the panel reset.
What did I find after going down and resetting system and have it go off 10 minutes later was a bad smoke detector in bedroom 14# occupied by a sweet old lady who sleeps all day
I changed the smoke detector and arranged the next day to update the panel with a new panel
as the old panel was slowly dying and needed replaced and with the new panel and features future problems will be avoided.
But we are still back to the original problem. Why did I never get a phone call till after so many false alarms especially when my phone number is in the front of the panel why did no one from fire dept call. Like I say the fire service is its own enemy and this case proves it. I have told this fire company repeatedly to call me if there is a problem it is written on the panel if there is a problem to silence alarm and call me . Why was this man arrested for pulling an alarm he could not have pulled? Again who is in charge ?a simple phone call would have stopped all of went on that night and day but no one calls till after 10 false alarms. and the fact my number is clearly written on panel.
Always with older conventional fire alarms silence them then call servicing company so a tech can be dispatched and problem found. The rest of the system will keep protecting till the tech gets there as other zones stay active,
do not keep resetting it.
I do this in many community's and I never have problems there . Yes this dept is volunteer if your wondering and maybe different people responded at different times but why was I not called? Other dept. call me and the hassle is avoided.
Why was common sense not used in this situation?
Instead an innocent man sits in county jail for weekend as I try to get hold of those responsible for the arrest and have him released.
Will common sense ever prevail in the Fire Service apparently not in this dept .
which continues to be its own worse enemy and blame the problem on the fire system instead of using common sense and picking up a phone.
Of course this is not the whole story the dirty little secret here in Pa. is most Personnel care homes are used to house the mentally Ill who otherwise would have been at institutions like
Dixmont, Woodville and Mayview and Western Center which where torn down and these homes replace and while the vast majority of homes in Allegheny county are excellent places for them to stay in a safe and functional environment outside Allegheny county like in Washington county the homes are total hell holes how they are kept. Like I said Pa's dirty little secret
Labels:
arrest,
false alarm,
fire chief,
health care,
manual fire pull
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