We’re all happy to have an emergency number to call when something goes seriously awry in our lives. There are so many people who have been saved, in one way or another, by the arrival of help just in the nick of time.
That said, it can be difficult to educate the general public on what, exactly, constitutes an emergency – which is why all sorts of non-emergent calls make their way to authorities.
Here are 29 times some hilarious “emergency” brought officers to a scene that was anything but.
29. Cinderella on the run.
“I spent 13 months as an officer.
One was during a patrol in the ghetto section, and I spot a car speeding down the street. As soon as I hit my lights, the driver jumps out of the car while it’s in motion and runs into the woods losing a sandal. The car stopped right before hitting a house and figured that another passenger stopped the vehicle, so called for immediate backup and secured it.
Turned out to be a notorious dealer with priors, and his ladies snitched when he bailed on them.”
28. Capture the flag.
“One woman called because someone “took” her American flag from her front yard. One of those little tiny yard flags that are about 1 foot tall and plant in your grass.
She called the morning after a particularly bad and windy thunderstorm. I had to explain to her that it’s much more likely that the flag blew away then someone maliciously ran off with a 50 cent flag.
I then found in a nearby sewer drain.”
27. That’s a bad day.
“We had a shooter trying to off us. He had several wea**ns on him and he managed to take out a few of our number.
He ran and hid in the woods traveling around town behind people’s houses for days. Businesses and roads were shut down people were told to stay inside.
It was pretty intense.”
26. Trespassers, indeed.
“Had an elderly frequent-caller report trespassing.
I show up and don’t see anyone around but her. She said mosquitoes were landing on the neighbor’s dog droppings.
She distressingly explained how the mosquitoes would then fly over the fence onto her property.”
25. That would be us, sir.
“One of our stations had a carnival fundraiser and the street was closed.
Someone called and complained there was a Ferris wheel obstructing traffic.”
24. Parents have it rough.
“We get these a couple times a week:
“My child won’t ______”
Brush teeth. Go to school. Clean room. Do homework. Get out of bed.
Yup… Livin’ the dream.”
23. She was technically correct.
“The most hilarious one was from a woman who called in to report a man driving around in his van playing loud music and luring kids.
When we showed up it was ice cream man.
I wish I was making this up. Some people are just nosey busy bodies.”
22. I hope they were handy.
“Old woman couldn’t back out of her driveway, asked for an officer to help spot her.
Woman couldn’t find out how to turn off her dryer ( was worried about flooding)
Old mans alarm clock went off and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. And was physically unable to bend down to unplug it.
17 year old girl asked if there was traffic in town ( that one kinda teed me off)
Old woman literally just asked for an officer to come over. Turns out she just wanted someone to talk to.”
21. Now THAT is lazy!
“A 50 y/o, 400lb guy had been calling the fire department a few times a day to let his dog out or bring him something like milk or the tv remote. They explained that they were regularly taking care of his dog by letting it out and picking up its poop. The fire department finally got mad and started calling us to help.
The guy use to be normal and then he got fat and started needing medicine so he wouldn’t hurt. The medicine made him completely idle so he got really fat and completely spaced out.
I was going to arrest him for emergency line misuse after I found out that they had 60 calls since the beginning of that year. Didn’t have a big enough car so I took a warrant and let someone else figure it out.”
20. Sherlock Holmes, this guy.
“I went to a house for suspicious footprints in the snow.
The footprints led to the oil tank, so I checked the mailbox with the homeowners and found an oil delivery receipt.”
19. What does that smell like?
“About once a month we had an old lady call us out to search her attic or back yard because she “could smell people having s*x there”.
It became so routine that the officer was to spend a few minutes shining the flashlight around a looking concerned.”
18. You might just let that one go.
“At the apartment tower I worked security for, some Saudi Royal family members called us because the hooker they hired took the money and ran.
Officers said, sure you can have the money back, but you have to admit to misdemeanor solicitation to do so.
Before people ask, their cars had KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) license plates and the Saudi Royal Family crest on it.
Also, they admitted to what they did to the officers, so in order for the officers to take the theft report, they would have to include the solicitation report.
They gave them a break by letting them all go.”
17. I’ve considered the same.
“A lady believed believed her washer and dryer were demon possessed. She really did believe this.
She could hear them talk s%*t about her. She’d call every few months. Officer was to look behind…inside..and around the dryer looking concerned and trying to reason with the ghost.
I finally got fed up with it and yelled at the ghost to “get the f**k out of here and never come back!” Seems to have worked.”
16. Who’s in charge of this dust?
“I was dispatched to a house reference a reported vandalism to a vehicle. When I got there, the guy who called was standing by his car.
I saw that there was no visible damage to the vehicle. His complaint was that dust picked by the wind was coming from his neighbors yard and landing on his car. The guy actually wanted to file an official complaint!
My first thought was maybe I was dreaming this nonsense. All I could do in response was stare at him and I said absolutely nothing. The guy became uncomfortable and explained his complaint again. I couldn’t help but just stare at him. At the time, I didn’t think I could say anything to him that didn’t sound insulting.
I think he finally got it since he just went inside his house and never called us again.”
15. Oh, how delightful.
“Disturbance call with an irate husband.
Arrived to see him rapidly walking down the street approaching the squad car with wife running behind him (in a populated neighborhood) with a big long floppy d**do waving around screaming “is this who you cheated on me with, you w**re?!”
14. It always takes a little luck.
“An armed theft at the government’s financial institution.
But, unlike the stuff they show in movies, we went in silent, spread around without approaching the premises too close and got all four of them by intercepting their car later on. One of our detectives came in an unmarked car and parked a few cars behind the vehicle with the engine running and the nervous driver behind the wheel and followed them.
We learned about the car thanks to the off-duty officer who was in the right place at the right time to notice the suspicious behavior (the car was parked in an unusual way among everything else that indicated to him that something fishy is going on).
Although, we were lucky in some sense because it took them ages to do what they came to do. Regardless, it all went smoothly and with no casualties.”
13. A crazy tale.
“Lady lies and calls to say her husband beat the s%*t out of her again. Here’s where the dumb/sad part is: Now I’d nabbed him before for DV a couple of times and he swore up and down he never touched her, but was in the bar down the street.
Earlier that day I p*ssed off my supervisor and was put on foot patrol in the neighborhood. Walking down the street on the sidewalk I saw this lady beating herself in the face with a chair. Literally. I call my supervisor and he gets there and we are both on the street watching this lady go WWE RAW on herself with this chair.
We then left and checked the bar and sure enough hubby was in there drinking and minding his business. She calls 15 minutes later saying hubby beat her up again. I booked her for filing a false report, btw.
Poor guy was telling the truth the whole time.”
12. A natural disaster.
“I’ve served as both a probation officer and city officer. There was a natural disaster in the area on a weekend. I got a call from the chief probation officer telling me that we were designated as disaster workers and we were to report for duty.
I was an armed field unit officer at the time and when we got into work all the armed officers were told we were going to patrol the disaster area. We were ordered to put on all of our marked clothes and report to an area for patrol.
It was a bit weird as all our cars were unmarked and had no lights. We had radios and cages in the cars but not the other equipment as we normally didn’t need it. The patrolling was fairly uneventful and we didn’t encounter any looters but we put in a number of 13-hour days. The community needed every armed LEO they could get and we did our part.”
11. Oh, how horrible.
“This happened on a particular cold evening.
A lady put her pit bull out on their porch and left the dog there over night and the poor thing froze.
The owner called and when we show up the dog is frozen and we have to charge her with animal cruelty.
Felt bad for the dog, not the person who was still tipsy when they called.”
10. Oops, rookie.
“When I was working for a small town department I received a phone call from our chief, who was off that day. He said a woman showed up on his front lawn saying she had just escaped from her kidnappers. Long story short she said something about him (her kidnapper) having a weapon and threatening to use it if she tried to escape.
Me, being young (20 at the time) and oblivious to what I was actually putting out on the radio, called out to the on-duty officer about the situation. My wording must have been terrible because I received radio messages from county and state stating they were en route to the chief’s residence. They thought someone had come to our chief’s home with a weapon and was holding him hostage.
The best part of this story is I gave the wrong address and all these cop cars from city county and state were blocking off the street one block over.”
9. Now that’s an emergency.
“30-something year old who called in the middle of one of the state’s worst blizzards (in recent memory) for “cracked hands”, aka dry skin.”
8. It should have been a simple stop…
“Officer here.
I’ve heard it over the radio many times but never used it my self. We are issued with a button on our radios that causes all radios to beep and vibrate, so it is instantly noticed by every officer in the area. Most memorable was a regular stop that turned south resulting in the officer being attacked and having his leg broken.
It was towards the end of the shift and most of the officers were finishing up on paperwork at the station. As soon as it went off every officer in the station left within 10 seconds of hearing it.
The suspect was quickly detained and charged soon after.”
7. He needed a helping hand.
“We received a call because a guy had hemorrhoids and wanted someone to apply Preparation H for him.
Yeah, that didn’t happen.”
6. Come one gawker, come all.
The all-units call was basically a riot at a large nightclub in a very rough area of the neighboring city. Once things were finally calmed down and the dozen or so people were taken away, my boss wanted us all back in our city.
I was amazed at not only how many men showed up but from where….counties and towns I had never heard of before. I looked up a few at the end of shift and some came from an hour plus away.”
5. A sense of humor.
“A lady called in to report her baby back ribs were taken ‘right off that grill’ while another called in to report that a plane was flying low.
Do I look like the FAA or Shane’s Ribs? We dispatched and aired lookouts on both.
Deputies called into radio practically crying at 3 AM, they were laughing so hard, when I confirmed the unit for ‘larceny, she wants her baby back, baby back ribs’ over our radio.”
4. One of their own.
“We had an all-units call to one of our own st**bed. Everyone went h**l for leather to get there, to find one of our guys on the floor with a stab wound to the stomach. We searched everywhere for the suspects and anyone matching the descriptions was taken in. So, it turns out the officer did it to himself.
He’d heard you couldn’t be fired from work if you were injured in the line of duty (he was under investigation for a minor issue, not anything involving the public. Just breach of procedure.) I don’t think I’ve ever been so disgusted with a colleague in my life. All the other “all units” calls I’ve been to have been genuine and luckily my colleagues unhurt.
I almost called one myself when someone pulled out a sawn-off sho**un at me. Luckily that panned out OK!”
3. That’ll definitely cause a fight.
“Family dispute call the day after Thanksgiving.
One party was mad at the other party because there was no leftover ham.”
2. Weddings are a wild card.
“A large wedding in Brooklyn—it was at midnight, so there weren’t that many units, to begin with. The families started warring with each other and when we arrived they, of course, turned on us. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, was brawling and we felt like Custer at Little Big Horn.
We turned out three cars that night and one of them was out on a homicide so we’re just yelling “Keep ’em coming, Central!” The duty captain (the supervisory officer for the patrol boro) shows up, looks around, sees that this is quickly becoming a riot and calls a citywide 10-13, which means a designated number of cars from every borough task force in the city.”
1. My neighbors must hate me.
“Get called to a neighbor dispute over barking dogs. Speak to the complainant who says his neighbor lets her dogs out a few times a day to do their business and they yap for a few minutes before being let back in.
He says he has reported it to animal services and by-law but they are taking too long. He feels this is harassment because he has a five month old baby who sleeps during the day… I tell him that based on this info it doesn’t seem unreasonable but I will talk to his neighbor.
Talk to her and she loses it saying that he has been harassing her for months. He has taken out a portion of the fence to enable her dogs to escape. He walks back and forth along the fence line every time she and her disabled 18 year old daughter are outside creeping them out.
He has been recording them by cell phone every time she lets out her dogs. And finally he yells and bangs in his walls every time she has company over… On top of that I meet the dogs and they are quite well behaved. Also she has months of records with dates and times of his weird behavior.
Basically, I end up going back to the first guy and a cautioning him that he could face charges of harassment if the behavior continues or escalates.
I’ll probably be back again next week…”
Think really hard about what people would consider an emergency, y’all.
If you’re an officer or a 9-1-1 operator, tell us in the comments about the most eyeroll-worthy call you’ve ever received!
