RCMP Watch

Brian Medel, Yarmouth, N.S. (Chronicle Herald) - The director of a Yarmouth daycare centre made a 911 call early Thursday morning when she thought an intruder was inside the building.

But Nicole Pothier eventually had to check out the building herself when police failed to arrive.

The town’s RCMP commander, Sgt. Frank Landry, says the call was never dispatched as a 911 call and he’s now determined to find out what happened.

Ms. Pothier is the first staff member to arrive each morning after 6:30 a.m. at the Yarmouth Boys and Girls Club daycare centre on Bond Street.

It’s a big centre, licensed to hold 103 children. And, she said, it’s not located in the best part of town.

“The alarm was going off. I was by myself. It was dark and I did not dare to enter the premises on my own,” she said Friday. “I’m a woman and this building is big.”

The 911 operator confirmed Ms. Pothier’s cellphone number and then patched the call through to the central RCMP telecommunications centre, as is usually done.

The RCMP dispatcher said someone would respond and told Ms. Pothier not to enter the building until police arrived.

“I checked with the (officers) that were working that morning and it was never dispatched as a 911 call,” said Sgt. Landry.

He said he didn’t know why.

But the daycare centre has had 22 false intrusion alarms in the past several months, he said.

In January, the RCMP delivered a letter to the daycare, advising that because the facility had had so many false alarms, it was being put on notice: Fix the problem or forget about police coming to investigate an alarm.

“If we had more than two (alarms) in 30 days, then they would not be responding to any alarm after that . . . until the problem was rectified,” said Ms. Pothier.

After the letter’s arrival, the daycare fixed the problem that had been at the root of the false alarms.

But the daycare neglected to tell the RCMP, Ms. Pothier admitted.

On Thursday morning, the alarm went off twice, once at 4 a.m. and again after 6:30 a.m., said Sgt. Landry.

Ms. Pothier was nonetheless concerned that her 911 call may have been treated as a less urgent matter.

“I personally called from my cellphone and they still didn’t respond,” she said. “I was in my van in front of the building.”

Sgt. Landry agreed that a 911 call should have been handled.

Ms. Pithier eventually called the town RCMP detachment at about 7:45 a.m. because parents were arriving with their children and police had not made an appearance.

“They told me to go in and if I saw anything suspicious to call them,” Ms. Pothier said about her brief chat with police.

When it was clear officers would not come, she decided to enter the building.

“I made the staff come in with me and we all just kind of went in together.”

When they noticed an open back door, they called for the cook, the only male employee, who was downstairs, to accompany them further.

However, they found no evidence of an intruder. Ms. Pothier said it’s likely the door hadn’t been properly latched the previous night and blew open in the wind.

Nonetheless, she said, “some of the parents were upset about the whole ordeal.”

“If we call for help, it would be nice to know that we are going to receive the help we want,” she said.

The incidence of false alarms has increased in Yarmouth.

“It takes us away from what we should be doing insofar as investigations and doing our day-to-day police work,” said Sgt. Landry. “Do the citizens of Yarmouth want us to be chasing false alarms?”

In 2006, Yarmouth RCMP responded to 252 false alarms.

From Jan. 1 through Sept. 30 last year, there were 312 false alarms.

“It’s obviously an issue that we have to address,” he said.

Letters have been sent to other Yarmouth businesses with high rates of false alarms.

“There comes a time when you have to say, listen, enough is enough,” said Sgt. Landry.

But police should have responded to Ms. Pothier’s 911 call, he said.