Pearce-Ford Tower residents aren’t laughing anymore. Those living in the 28-story dorm have hiked up and down the stairs for five false fire alarms in the last week.

Campus police and Housing and Residence Life aren’t laughing either. HRL is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who can identify the person who has been pulling the fire alarms. Campus police have a number of leads in the investigation.

The first alarm occurred Monday morning at 1:40 a.m., according to the police report. The fourth floor pull station was activated. The second was again on Monday morning at 3:51 a.m., and the ninth floor pull station was activated. On Tuesday, two alarms were activated, one at 12:14 a.m. and the other at 2:38 a.m. The sixth floor pull station was activated with both alarms. Another happened yesterday at 2 a.m., with the eighth floor pull station being activated.

“We’ve been getting different names and descriptions of people pulling the alarms, so I can’t say right now that they are connected,” said campus police investigator Capt. Jerry Phelps.

According to Kentucky state law, if someone is indicted for falsely reporting an incident, they can face up to one year in prison for each count. It is considered a Class A misdemeanor.

By the end of the week, Phelps said he plans on interviewing three different people.

“Sometimes we don’t get in until 5 a.m., and some of my residents have 8 o’clock classes,” said Jaivonna Crook, Nashville senior and PFT resident assistant. “I don’t like for my girls to walk around sad and stressed out because they aren’t getting enough sleep.”

This isn’t the first time PFT residents have been plagued by false alarms. During the spring semester last year, a similar situation occurred.

“It started in February,” Crook said. “It would start at midnight, and sometimes we would have two or three a night.”

She said she hopes HRL’s reward will help campus police figure out who is pulling the alarms.

“It’s not about the reward money,” Crook said. “It’s about finding the person who is doing this so we can put an end to it. The person who is doing it obviously doesn’t care. Why would you want to keep pulling the alarm and going outside in the cold and in the rain and get no sleep? They must be flunking out and don’t care. This joke really isn’t funny.”

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