False alarm?

Colleges are afraid that security alerts are losing credibility. From The Raleigh Observer:

Media attention and new campus alert systems established after the mass shootings at Virginia Tech may be responsible for a recent spike in false crime reports on college campuses nationwide.
In the past two months, at least three false reports have been filed on crimes at North Carolina college campuses. About a half dozen more have been publicized across the country within the past six months.
"For some people, it's the attention-seeking. For others, it's revenge. For still others, it's the feeling of power they get by watching a college campus react," said Daniel Kennedy, a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Detroit Mercy. "It's like starting a fire, then sitting back and watching the commotion."
False reports that trigger campus alert systems may not cut into the budget, but they can be costly when it comes to credibility, Capt. Jon Barnwell of the N.C. State University Police Department said.
Several conversations take place at N.C. State before a message is sent out through the university's campuswide alert system, Barnwell said.
"You've got to define your parameters of when you use it," he said. "You've got the situation of the person who cries wolf ... how long can you go before it's construed as, `Oh, this is a message from the listserv, I'm gonna delete it,' as opposed to, `This is something I don't get often, so I'm going to read it.' "
Three weeks after UNC-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson was killed, the Tar Heel campus was again on high alert. Senior Brian Sharpe reported a robbery attempt last week. Campus officials sent out e-mails to alert the campus community of possible danger.
The crime was never substantiated. Sharpe was charged with filing a false police report. A second e-mail blast debunking Sharpe's report was sent to students, staff and faculty.
Meagan Shallcross, a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill, said it was disturbing to learn that the report was fake, especially coming just weeks after Carson's death. "It's always going to scare people, but I think it seems so disrespectful," she said.
Testing of the new components of the university's campuswide emergency alert system had been well publicized for several weeks, spokesman Mike McFarland said.
Two days before Sharpe made his claims to campus police, the campus had undergone a drill that included sounding new emergency sirens. The sirens, as well as emergency text and e-mail messages, are part of a revamped emergency alert system campus officials designed shortly after Hurricane Katrina.
Appalachian State alert
On Feb. 14, a gunman killed five people and wounded 16 others gathered in a Northern Illinois University lecture hall before taking his own life.
Several weeks later, on March 3, Matthew Haney told authorities at Appalachian State University in Boone that he had seen a gunman near the west end of campus. School officials sent out a campus alert and canceled evening classes.
Authorities later said he made the false accusations because he feared having to pay for damage done to the front door at his campus apartment. Haney was charged with filing a false police report.
Three days later, a woman told Duke University police officials she had been sexually assaulted near Duke Hospital. She later recanted, saying she had not even been near the campus at the time. Officials said they would not be filing charges against the woman.
Duke officials sent out an alert when the report was made, said Aaron Graves, Duke's associate vice president for safety and security. Another went out after the woman recanted.
"We have to make an announcement when there is a significant event that is reported on campus," he said. "We sent out another one when she recanted. It takes some time to investigate and pull the facts together."