8.
Going to let you in on a secret. Most 911 calls are pretty dumb, and not emergencies. I work overnight so most of the time the calls we get are pretty legit. But occasionally…
I’ve had the guy call in because he was looking at weather radar and said that law enforcement, noaa, and the cia were covering up the fact that the storm he was looking at was going to destroy the city. There was no storm. There was no rain or wind. It was clear outside, had been for weeks and remained that way for weeks afterward.
Another woman called in because she said someone broke into her home and was now currently sitting on her couch looking at his phone. She said some noise woke her up and she saw the light from his phone when she opened the bedroom door. I asked the usual questions including if she had a dog and whether it was alerting to the noise. She said the dog was asleep in the bed and that he usually barks at strange noises (huge clue that nothing is happening, most dogs will alert to strange noises at night). Officer goes on scene doesn’t see anything. Turns out the light she saw was from one of those electronic picture frames, that she owned, and knew about.
Another break in call. Woman calls at around 2:30 in the morning. Says she heard someone knocking on her door and heard some noises outside. I’ve got 2 or 3 officers headed her way. Through our conversation, I find out she is hiding in the closet. Then, I ask when the last time she heard or saw something strange. She gets very quiet and says that she last heard something at around 11pm. Turns out she had been working up the nerve to call 911, sitting in the closet for 3 and a half hours.
7.
There’s a 92 year old lady who calls us every single night about the little green men on her roof between 12:30am and 1:30am. My theory is that’s when her the meds wear off. She’s been doing it almost a decade now.
And she won’t go to bed unless an officer shows up and shines their lights. And if we ignore her, she calls back.
We’ve tried to contact her family, to which they just told us there was nothing wrong with her.
6.
Obligatory not a 911 dispatcher but I live in northern British Columbia where seeing moose and other wildlife is a pretty common thing. Anyways, we had an exchange student from some place that apperently never has seen wildlife before. A moose was apperently in her driveway and was happily munching on a tree. She freaked the fuck out and called 911 reporting a “large 4 legged sasquatch” was eating her tree. I mean really, she came on an exchange to Canada and had never even heard of a moose.
5.
No joke. An old lady called and complained about the ‘black foreigners’ which were just going for a walk. There are so much people who call us about things which has nothing to do with us. And some people are really really racist…
4.
I got a call one night about 3am.
“I hear a buzzing noise coming from my neighbor. I bet it’s a meth lab!”
Sent an officer with the lowest of priorities.. turns out it was a vibrator and not a meth lab.
If you’re wondering, yes, this was in Florida.
3.
A friend of mine wasn’t 911 dispatch but he is an officer who had to work a desk for a period of time.
He got these two calls in successive days:
Day 1: “I can’t find my lotto ticket and I’m sure I won!”
Day 2: “I live in Canada, but I got a text from your area code that I don’t recognize and it says ‘she’s dead. How do we hide it?…”
The first call was dismissed. The second actually led to two arrests for murder
2.
I have been a call taker for the police and ambulance and there’s always one that comes to mind when I get asked this question.
It was about 2am on a weekday morning and a lady called up and said that there a badger trying to get out of her garden gate and it’s making a bit of a racket keeping her awake. She’s unwilling to go down there and open the gate for it because she’s worried it will become aggressive with her and wants me to send an officer to open the gate. I repeat back to her “you want me to send a police officer to come and open your back gate to let a badger out?” And this obviously had the desired effect of making her realise how ridiculous she was being because she just said “well you’re not very helpful, are you?” And hung up.
I’m sure there have been many others but this is the one that really takes the biscuit.
1.
But the woman that locked herself inside her car was probably among the worst.
One that I initially thought was going to be the dumbest was a truck driver wanted the fire dept to come out and spray down a trailer full of hogs she was hauling. Colleague pointed out that it was a summer day. The driver’s rig was broken down and without the wind blowing in the trailer that whole load of hogs would have died. So I ended up being the dumb one for thinking it was dumb.