DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – The Detroit Police were questioned why they didn’t respond to a recent alarm for a possible break-in at the Detroit Dog Rescue (DDR) animal shelter at their Harper Avenue location on the east side of the city.
Ryan Connor, Commander of Detroit’s 9th precinct, said at a press conference, “At approximately 6:43 a.m., an alarm was triggered at the DDR. That came in as an unverified alarm. The department does not respond to unverified alarms. An unverified alarm is one in which it’s solely just an alarm that comes in. A verified alarm is one that has multiple motion trips or there is a business owner or their representative on scene who calls in to the Detroit Dispatch. That would qualify as a response run.”
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Fox 2 WJBK had talked with DDR’s Executive Director, Kristina Rinaldi, about the situation earlier and she was upset about the recent circumstances and the police response to the same thing happening back in October. She said it had taken three hours for the police to show up after she made a special call to them. When the police came to investigate two months ago, they found a scene with a broken window and scattered and destroyed supplies inside which amounted to thousands of dollars in damage. Rinaldi also said she didn’t get any officers to show up when a car was stolen from the property earlier.
According to a police source who spoke with Fox 2, break-ins get a Priority One classification which means an immediate officer response will take place, however, without the alarm being verified, that response doesn’t happen.
When Command Connor was asked more about the situation, he said that when an alarm is tripped, the information goes to the alarm company and if it is verified, they call the police. Verification can take the form of using the different criteria as described above which can include motion detectors or surveillance cameras.
Commander Connor said it was a windy night and he thinks the wind probably blew open a door and tripped an alarm. He said that no more alarms were triggered after that. He also said that when “Breaking and Entering” crimes are committed, they usually produce several alarms going off.
Even if it was a false alarm this time, the folks at the DDR have reason to be on edge because of the earlier incidents.
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Rinaldi had told media outlets that the people who broke in during the month of October brought their own leashes. She thinks they were expecting to leave the building with smaller cute dogs to re-sell but came upon larger dogs which they probably weren’t expecting.
In all of the incidents, the dogs were not hurt or stolen but the group has every reason to worry about the future safety of the dogs, volunteers and staff as well as physical and financial damage to the organization.
Detroit Dog Rescue is the city’s first no-kill shelter and was founded in February of 2011 because the City of Detroit refused to let a network television series access to document the stray dog problem in the city. The rescue group’s website says that they help between 80 and 120 dogs at any given time and were able to open their shelter in the spring of 2014. They take in many troubled dogs that many deem “unadoptable” and invest the time and training needed to rehabilitate these dogs and find them forever homes. They are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and licensed by the state of Michigan.
The media has reported a lack of police officers all over the country and the City of Detroit is no different. Michigan Radio released an article in September reporting that more than 200 officers have quit the Police Department this year which is twice as many as in 2021.
