2007 First Line of Defense Award

Sentry Watch Alarm Helps Catch Criminals

Those in the alarm industry know how useful monitored security systems can be in deterring and even helping capture criminals. Few, however, have actually experienced it first hand. Not so for Gene Loye, president of Sentry Watch, Inc.

While attending the Central Station Alarm Association meeting in Savannah, Ga. Loye received a phone call from his central station informing him they had received an alarm signal from his residence and had dispatched the police.

Loye then called a neighbor and asked him to meet the Forsyth Co. sheriff’s deputy that had been dispatched to investigate the alarm. Both arrived at the house at the same time and noticed the garage door open. The deputy went to the front door to see if he could get someone to come to the door.

“All the while I’m on the phone with my central station and they are informing me of the alarm signals they were receiving,” Loye said. “They told me they had just gotten a signal from the basement door and then the basement patio door.”

Loye, communicating via 2-way, told his neighbor what his central station had just said. “I said ‘Bob you’ve got to get to the back patio, they’re going to get away’,” Loye said.

His neighbor and the deputy both went to the back of the house to find two men sitting in Loye’s basement drinking his beer. When asked what they were doing there one of the men told the deputy he had just inherited the property and they were checking it out.

When asked for identification (ID) the same man told the deputy he was the President of the United States and that he was just looking at the property and that his ID was upstairs. The deputy, along with the neighbor, escorted the man upstairs where the perpetrator turned on the officer and assaulted him.

After a brief altercation the officer was able to subdue the suspect and cuff him. Both men were arrested.

“I think our people did an excellent job of responding and reacting to the situation as they always do with our regular customers,” Loye said.

Loye’s story is a perfect example of why monitored intrusion detection systems and police response are so important to the safety and security of lives and property. Without the alarm system, Loye and his wife might have returned home to find two intruders in their residence, one of whom was obviously violent.