It definitely isn't the system they use to stop harassing innocent people after dozens of inappropriate visits but before the Daily News investigates and reports on it. I'm not sure they have a system for that.
Wow. Were none of the same cops ever on the repeat visits? "Hey Joe, isn't this the same elderly couple who had nothing to do with the murder and the coke deal and the prostitution ring? Why the heck are we here again?"
I'll believe this one. I used friend's addresses in testing a system years ago. It's worth having a "zoo" of addresses because they come in a dazzling variety of formats - Salt Lake City, for example, has 2 Temple Streets that run east-west, one north of the LDS Temple, and one south. So they have a "directional": 123 E Temple St N. Apartment numbers are also a problem
Once you're done developing, the hand off to day-to-day administration sometimes leaves things behind. Test addresses might just stay in the system.
Something of a similar nature happened to me at a university a decade or so ago. My e-mail address somehow got stored on a server as the default reply-to address for the e-mail client in all the public labs. I ended up getting on every mailing list in the known universe.
They eventually fixed it, but then there was a crash, and they restored from a backup ....
Once at my Mum's (in England), a cop rang the doorbell at 2AM. I thought 'They're coming for me!' but it was just the car's boot lid was wide open and the policeman was concerned!
Call me cynical, but the first thing I thought when reading this is "so that's how they keep the police from bothering any of the 'connected' people".