Calling the Police: PR Nightmare or Liability Protection?

BY BETSY ELAINE TYURINBusiness Development Coordinator

World Builders Inc.

A police car pulls up outside your property with sirens blaring. Invariably a crowd of residents gather and begin speculating about what may be going on. Many property management companies provide tenants with information about these incidents via email or flyer to help control the conversation and reassure tenants of their safety or need to be vigilant, while others remain silent.

The Questions to Consider:• How will gossip and speculation affect the resident

experience if nothing is explained?• Will providing information about an incident that

might have gone unnoticed create unnecessary panic?

• Are my tenants or my staff at risk?• What safety measures can I provide if I don’t call the

police? According to an article published in Multifam-ily Executive on October 19, 2009, studies have shown that sexual assault, and assault and battery are the two crimes most likely to result in premises liability lawsuits against multifamily property owners and managers. The best way to prevent these lawsuits from happening is to know how to utilize your property’s safety features and create a set protocol for your management for when and how to react when an unsafe situation comes to their attention.

Security Cameras You may already have them installed, but how often is your staff actually checking them? New blue tooth technology allows residents and management the capability to see what the camera sees in real time via their computers or mobile phones. Is it time for an upgrade?

Being able to personally see security footage can make your tenants feel safer and be more deterred from committing crimes against the property or other residents because they are aware that their own actions might be seen by others.

Controlled Access Making your entries and exits to gates, am-menities and other common areas restricted to electronic key card access can allow you to know exactly who was in these parts of your property at any time. The microchip in the key card logs the name of the card holder and the exact date and time he or she used the card at each point of access.

Noise Complaints Noise complaints are very common in apart-ment communities where tenants live in close proximity. They can be about inconsequential things like the jock who plays his stereo too loud, the girl who gets drunk and noisy at odd hours, but sometimes the noise can be related to serious concerns like rape or domestic violence. Often tenants will voice these complaints to management because if they address the situation directly, it could create an angry or retaliatory situation with someone that they are contractually obligated to live next to for the remainder of their leases.

It is important to have your management team document all noise complaints with specific detail, such as if the noise was music versus someone yelling or fight-ing. Many incidents of rape and domestic violence go unreported because the victim is fearful of retaliation, and having the police investigate incidents in which noise com-plaints involved fighting can save the lives of victims who haven’t found their own voices. Having the police visit your property can be a red flag that something unsafe has happened, but if your man-agement provides appropriate communication with your residents, it can show your commitment to ensure a safe environment and mitigate some premises liability issues. The key is to control the way the information is presented, which means not staying silent, which allows for gossip.

Alarms and Monitoring Services Installing alarms with monitoring for burglary/fire/medical emergency services in each unit of your prop-erty can raise your property value, decrease your insurance rates, and make your residents feel safer. Multi-building property on an open site? Con-sider installing an emergency call box in the parking lot and other dangerous areas so that residents and staff can call for help even if they are caught without their cell phones. ☐

The statistics above were published by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation as a statistical representation of reported crimes over a period of time. More information is available at fbi.gov.