By Corey Fischer

Police Busy With False Alarms and Abandoned 911 Calls

May 15, 2018 | 5:30 AM

The acting officer in charge of the North Okanagan says his officers spend a lot of time dealing with what often turn out to be false alarms.

Inspector Gord Stewart says they had 1,244 of those calls last year — with his rough estimate of 90 percent turning out to be false.

“And those are commercial, residential, you name it. I find it odd that an alarm company can use us as their runners, but they do that, and we respond,” Stewart told council.

Pictured: Inspector Gord Stewart, officer in charge Vernon North Okanagan RCMP

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The acting officer in charge, Inspector Gord Stewart, told Vernon council, they had over 27-hundred of those calls last year.

“That can range everything from a very specific complaint about a specific vehicle with a plate, driving in a dangerous manner, to ‘I saw a grey car pass me dangerously a week ago.’ It does occupy quite a bit of our time,” says Stewart.

Second on the list was about two-thousand abandoned 911 calls.

Stewart says they’re required to follow up on each and every one of those, to make sure no one is at risk.

by Corey Fischer