Cincinnati Police Department Limits Police Responding

The Cincinnati Police Department has begun limiting police response for non-urgent matters in an effort to stop the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. Calls deemed to be non-urgent are being redirected for online or phone reporting. The temporary policy took effect Tuesday, March 24th.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Chief of the Cincinnati Police Eliot Isaac stated, "I want all of the residents and visitors to Cincinnati to understand that the Cincinnati Police Department is ready and able to respond to any emergency call from the public... Our recently implemented Differential Response Plan is intended to limit the exposure of our officers and the public to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and our desire is to continue to provide the highest level of police service, while maximizing our efficiency and effectiveness."

The department went on to add that the following calls will be redirected for phone and/or online reporting:

• Assaults not requiring medical attention where suspect is no longer present.
• Auto collisions, except those w/ injuries and/or vehicles that are no longer drivable
• Breaking and entering w/ no suspect & no possibility of property recovery.
• Criminal damaging reports.
• Dog bites.
• Found property
• Lost or stolen license plates.
• Menacing reports, unless suspect is expected, threatens to return, or is associated w/ domestic violence.
• Phone harassment.
• Property damage.
• Theft reports w/o possibility of “immediate apprehension or property recovery”, unless value is equal to or greater than $5,000 and/or the stolen property involves a firearm.

Cincinnati residents are encouraged to report crimes online via the Cincinnati Police Department website, which can be accessed here. Another option for reporting any of the crimes listed above is to contact the Cincinnati Police Department Telephone Crime Reporting Unit (TCRU) at (513) 352-2960. The TCRU will accept reports from 8am to 5pm The Cincinnati Police Department also operates a non-emergency phone line at (513) 765-1212 for non-urgent matters.

If you have central station monitoring service in Cincinnati, then you should understand that the Cincinnati Police Department will still be responding to dispatch requests like normal. Cincinnati is not a verified response community, meaning that a dispatch request from a certified central station operator is sufficient for warranting an emergency response. An alarm from a security system is considered to be an emergency, and the appropriate authorities will still respond ASAP. However, Alarm Grid would like to remind all of its monitored customers to do their part in preventing false alarms by saving the CMS telephone numbers in your phone, setting appropriate entry/exit delays for your system, knowing your false alarm passcode, and placing your system on test mode before testing sensors.

It is presumed that the change in policy will be temporary and last until measures relating to COVID-19 are relaxed. No official or expected end date has been provided at this time. Please continue to check our blog for more information relating to police response policies in major cities and metropolitan areas.

Alarm Grid customers in Cincinnati who would like to learn more about this change in policy are invited to reach out to us by emailing support@alarmgrid.com. We are available to respond to emails from 9am to 8pm ET M-F. We look forward to hearing from you.