Christmas Installers Prompt Police Response

Cheyenne Police responded to a suspicious activity call on Stetson Drive on Thursday morning, only to discover the subjects were a crew installing Christmas lights. A neighbor noticed multiple vehicles parked near a residence where the homeowners were out of town. The caller alerted officers to the presence of strangers wandering the property early in the morning.

An officer arrived at the scene at approximately 8:15 a.m. Before the situation escalated into a neighborhood investigation, dispatch received a cancellation notice. A dispatcher announced over the radio that the resident had called back to explain the individuals were hired for holiday lighting. Cheyenne Police Department spokesperson Alex Farkas confirmed the incident details and noted the neighbor contacted the department after identifying the crew.

Farkas stated the report was valid because the activity appeared unusual for the time of day. She said the department encourages residents to report observations that seem out of the ordinary. "That's exactly the kind of awareness and communication we encourage," Farkas said. She added that while this specific call resulted in a false alarm, the department always urges people to contact police when they see something suspicious.

City records indicate that false security alarms have become a common occurrence in Wyoming. In Green River, police once responded to a burglar alarm at a vacation home where a family friend had entered the wrong security code while caring for pets. In another instance, a basement motion detector triggered a response, likely due to pets inside a secure house. These incidents highlight the frequency with which police respond to non-criminal triggers.

Casper experienced a similar issue, with officers responding to roughly 1,200 private burglar alarms annually. In 2022, the police chief presented data to City Council showing that 99.2% of those alarms were false. Between 2017 and 2022, Casper officers spent an estimated 3,169 hours on these responses. The city adopted escalating fines to address the problem, reaching $500 for repeated burglar alarms and $750 for repeated panic alarms.

Cheyenne has adopted similar ordinances, with fees reaching $400 for repeated false alarms. The local rule recognizes animals, birds, and reptiles as potential causes for accidentally triggered systems. These penalties apply to security systems rather than neighbors who report genuine concerns about suspicious activity. Allen Thompson, executive director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, noted that officers must prepare for the worst when responding to suspicious calls, regardless of how implausible the report may seem.

Over the past five years, Cheyenne police averaged 3,083 suspicious-activity reports annually. Only about 17% of these reports resulted in criminal cases. Through November 10 of this year, officers handled 2,348 such reports. Approximately 22% of those investigations led to criminal cases. The remaining reports involved legitimate concerns that did not lead to formal charges, similar to the Christmas light installers on Stetson Drive.