21 Outrageous 911 Calls That Prove Common Sense Isn’t So Common

These stories might make you think twice about becoming a cop—really.

Jesse

• Published in News
• December 16, 2024

Let’s face it, life can be full of conflicts: the neighbor’s dog digging up your garden, a noisy party that disrupts your beauty sleep, or someone cutting in line at Starbucks. But most of us have the decency—and patience—to solve these issues without dialing 911. Unfortunately, not everyone got that memo.

You don’t need rocket science to tell you that emergency services are meant for, well, emergencies. But there’s always that one person dialing 911 over a loud sneeze or a neighbor’s perfectly harmless barbecue smoke. 

Yes, folks. Some people seem to think that the police are the ultimate fix for life’s tiniest inconveniences. Lucky for us, the internet has delivered a vault of these hilariously absurd moments. 

A Quora thread recently asked users to spill the tea on the dumbest reasons people have called the cops, and boy, did the replies roll in. While some of these stories are enough to make you lose faith in humanity, they’re also impossible not to laugh at.

So buckle up and prepare to roll your eyes, shake your head, and maybe giggle uncontrollably as we dive into the top 21 times the police were dragged into the ridiculous drama of everyday life.

1. When the police force joins your lunch party and the neighbor calls it a rager

I was renting an apartment in the middle of town. I grew up with the chief of police and remained good friends. One day he and a few other policemen stopped by for lunch. The apartment adjacent to mine had a teacher living in who absolutely snored any noise and called the police to report a loud party at my place. It was really funny hearing about 5 police radios go off reporting that I was having a load and boisterous party when most of the police force were eating lunch in my apartment.

2. Calling the cops on a cop for being told your case wasn’t ‘cop worthy.’ Crazy

I was recently retired from a major police department and took a job as a police officer at a local university. That university had a large and busy hospital that younger officers didn’t like to work at because you were at a fixed post vs patrolling.

One night the nurse at the desk had an issue that she summoned me for. I listened and explained to her that her issue was a non police matter basically telling her there was nothing I can do as a police officer. She looked at me with disbelief then dialed 911 right in front of me and reported same incident to the city dispatchers telling them I said I could do nothing. I was confident in my decision so decided to wait and didn’t object to her call.

She might have assumed that since I was a recent hire that I was new to law enforcement so I kindly let her know I was a recent retiree of the department she called and she just smirked at me. Well not too long later the city police officers arrived and she told them exactly what she told me and they said there was nothing that they could do and turned around and left.

I was taken aback when she called 911 in front of me like she was calling the police on me for not doing nothing but was exhonerated by the officers who arrived so I made a mental note to be careful around her moving forward.

3. When a 6-year-old’s birthday bash gets raided, but the only thing popping is the karaoke machine

Me, me, me …. I've got this one. It was the year 2000, my youngest was celebrating his 6th birthday with family and a couple of neighbors, there were about 8 adults and 5 kids present at approximately 2pm. At the time we lived in the tourist part of Salem, MA, also know as the Witch City, due to the Salem Witch Trials.

My son, the youngest of 3 boys loved music and to sing. At the time, I had a close friend who owned a karaoke company who offered to be the entertainment for the party. The everyone was having a blast, enjoying being outside on a beautiful spring day. Everyone there was watching the kids sing and a couple adults even gave it a go. At about 3pm, my mom, who was 72 at the time, came over to me and pointed to my neighbors driveway, at the 3 police officer's watching the kids singing.

I approached them and offered them something to eat and a cold drink. At that time they informed me that they were there on business, not a social visit with my neighbor, who was also on the dept. and at the party. The officer's then informed me that someone called the police for a loud party with a lot of alcohol consumption and several intoxicated individuals.

I couldn't help but start laughing, after all, it was a child's 6th birthday on a spring Saturday afternoon, with ZERO alcohol present, not even 1 beer. The officer's took a look around, some no one was drinking, than had a good laugh about it with us, one even sang karaoke. Who many kids can say there 6th birthday party was raided by police. To this day, we still tease him about it.

4. Teaching your kids to swim or trying to commit murder by drowning in broad daylight? Apparently, some people can’t tell the difference

Not me. My parents. I learned to swim literally before I could walk. We lived in south Florida, so of course water was everywhere. My parents would take me to the beach, carry me out a little ways, stand maybe 15 feet apart, and... throw me!

I'd scream with delight until I hit the water, swim to the other parent... Someone called the police and said they were trying to drown me! Mind you, this was over 50 years ago. No cell phones. No 911. No touch tone dialing.

They found a phone, looked up the number, and manually dialed seven digits, or bothered an operator. The officer walked out as far as he could on the sand, laughed, and called my parents over to tell them why he was there.

5. When your sonic bomb alarm scares the whole neighborhood, and the cops show up to check if you're alive. Deaf problems, am I right?

Me me me me MEEEEEE! Let me preface this by saying I am deafened and take my CI bleat implant and hearing aid out when I sleep. So I can’t hear nothing at all! I have an alarm clock called a sonic bomb (some of you may see where I’m going here).

The night before this incident it was the start of a heatwave so I opened my bedroom windows. I don’t recall setting my alarms but the next morning I woke up naturally at about 10am and saw my doorbell light (I have a red light on every room connected to the doorbell) was on.

I stuck my head out of my curtains and saw a police van, 6 panicked police officers and one was holding the big red key (battering ram for those not in the UK). I shouted that I’ll be down in a second.

Put my CI and HA on and oooh my sonic bomb is going off (on audible not vibrate … somehow I had it on audible setting). I go down toopen the door and explain I’m deaf … an irate neighbour said it had been going off for 2 hours and he thought I was dead! I told my deaf family and friends who all laughed and said “deaf problems”!

6. When you have neighbors, anything can lead to a turf war—even mowing the lawn

Ok, it was ME who had the cops called on them, it was my father. While he was mowing our yard (which bordered our neighbor’s yard), our neighbor came home and proceeded to yell at my father. He is hard of hearing (lucky him!), so he was unaware of her.

I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I don’t engage in “white trash” yelling at people from my yard, in public. Next thing I know, three - yes 3 cops pulled up and started talking with my neighbor.

My dad had finished mowing by this point. This neighbor is a renter (we have a good relationship with the actual owner of the property) and was confused and wrong about where “her” property lines are located.

We ended up needing the owner to come over and place markers to show her where the actual property lines are - instead of where she wanted them to be.

7. At this point, it’s safe to say the police are really good through it

For about 38 years, I didn’t drink or otherwise consume anything I knew contained caffeine. During that time, my morning hot beverage was Postum. Naturally I didn’t keep any coffee in my apartment. I had a couple of guests/friends who were visiting an staying the night at my apartment and both of them went out and came home pretty well inebriated.

One of them was on the Atkins diet which prohibited carbohydrates. When they mentioned they wanted some coffee, I told them all I had was the Postum, but they were welcome to it. After drinking a number of cups of the stuff, the one doing the Atkins program decided to look at the nutrition label on the bottle of Postum.

There weren’t many calories in it, but what there were were 100% carbohydrate. She had a conniption fit. She wanted to call the police about the injustice. I wouldn’t let her use my phone. Indignant, the two of them left out my front door, staggered down the street until they found a pay telephone, and apparently they did call the police. When they returned, they gave me all the details of what they had done.

They told me about how the police didn’t give a damn about how many carbohydrates were in Postum, suggested that they use a different beverage to sober up, and went as far as say that they would come out an arrest them if they didn’t stop calling the emergency line. According to her, the Atkin’s lady did get the last word in. Before hanging up she said, “Well if this isn’t a crime, I don’t know what is!” I’m just glad I didn’t let them use my phone.

8. A crash, a raid, and a whole lot of confusion

Sleeping. In my own bed. At 2:00 in the morning. My youngest daughter was going through some behavioral issues during high school. She decided to skip school the last day before winter break and hang out at her friends house and smoke weed and drink all day.

Fast forward a few days, I'm sleeping in my bed and I get woken up by a huge crashing noise and a bunch of yelling. I thought a car crashed into our house (we live on a sharp curve in the road, so it could happen), but it was about 7 or 8 cops busting in my front door and rushing my house in full battle gear, with guns drawn.

It took them about 10 minutes to search my house and fully assess the situation before they told me anything. Apparently they had gotten a call from a “concerned citizen” that I was in the midst of a fit of rage and was beating the ever-loving sh*t out of my daughter. The cops saw, obviously, that that was not at all the case, and they left.

Come to find out, it was the mother of the friend whose house my daughter skipped school at. She had called the cops on me because she was afraid that I was going to find out that she was the one that supplied the weed and alcohol for the school skipping party. She got wasted with a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds and called the cops on three other parents (me included) with false reports to try to cover it up.

Because of all the stuff she did, she ended up losing custody of her kids, she tried to replace her kids with m*th, she got fired from her job, her boyfriend left her, then she got evicted from her trailer. And she still to this day blames everyone but herself for the situation she is in.

9. That awkward moment when the cops show up at your door, and even they can’t believe the story—exes and their games never cease to amaze!

Going back some years, I had just put my daughter to sleep when there was a knock on the door - probably 9PM. I answered and there were 2 police officers there, saying that they needed to speak with me. “Go ahead” I said.

They indicated to come in but I stood firm and asked what this was about. “We’ve had a complaint, someone you know has filed for a DVO (Domestic Violence Order) against you”. “Read this” said one officer, holding out a piece of paper. Upon reading it, I wasn’t any more enlightened.

Apparently, someone had been ringing this woman’s doorbell night and day and trying to access her unit. “You were just there again tonight”said an officer. “Really? When?” I asked. “About 30 minutes ago” said the other officer. I laughed. I did not own a car, the address was a long bus ride away, I certainly didn’t know the woman and I had been with my daughter all evening, which I explained to the cops.

They looked at each other and said goodnight, then they left. Even they thought something was fishy. Turned out this woman was a friend of my ex, who wanted custody of our daughter after failing to attend the custody case in court (that court appearance is somewhere else on Quora). They were both charged with making a vexatious complaint and put on good behaviour bonds.

10. When you have neighbors, anything can lead to a turf war—even mowing the lawn

Not me, but new neighbors. We’ve lived in a neighborhood with the same people for 30 years. Recently, one of the crowd had to move to assisted living. The house sold quickly, was flipped a couple times, remodeled and finally purchased by a family with 10 kids.

We met them, they’re very nice folks, home schoolers, watch their kids, kids are very polite and don’t bother anyone, so far… New owners have a building/home remodeling company, so they spent a few weeks getting the house ready. they did a lot of work, had dumpsters and building supplies in the yard, but didn’t disturb the neighbors.

When they finally moved in, they put their garbage cans out at the road a few days early. Not an issue for me. They’re new and will figure out the program. But No! One of the neighbors called the police, who showed up promptly to issue a written warning for garbage cans on the tree lawn before permitted.

I can’t understand why the neighbor didn’t show up with a tray of cookies and be the Welcome Wagon person directing them to the info they need for the future. Really rude behavior on the neighbor’s part.

11. Oh, those little rascals!

One Christmas at the relatives’ house, with the whole extended family present, some of the over-active boys were playing in one of the lounge rooms. They decided to pick up the phone handset, dial “000” (the emergency number in Australia, equivalent to the American 911), and leave it off the hook while they ran around playing, yelling out things like “I’m gonna kill you” and so on — as overactive boys do sometimes at family gatherings.

A little while later, two polite police officers knocked on the front door and enquired if everything was OK. We were all surprised as we were totally unaware of what the boys had done with the phone until the police turned up. The 000 staff did the right thing letting the police know about the phone call. It was the boys playing with the phone — and especially dialling that number and leaving the handset off the hook — that was stupid. At least the police didn’t find a crime scene at our family gathering.

12. Who knew chickens could be mistaken for satanic rituals? Guess even rural Texas needs a crash course in farm life

Some years ago I was living in rural Texas. My housemates decided to raise chickens. They thought it would be “fun.” Eventually, they got bored of the chickens, so I processed the chickens for future consumption in the front yard where the light was good.

My neighbors called the local police and claimed I was conducting Satanic Rituals. Once again, this was rural Texas (no HOAs, large tracts of land with the Piney Woods for our backyards). All of these neighbors claimed to be descended from farmers and country people. They should have damn well recognized what cleaning a bunch of chickens looked like versus “Satanic Rituals.”

13. Using 911 as a bargaining chip to get a discount? Now that’s a new one

A customer came to pick up a stained glass window I had repaired. He tried to talk me into lowering the price we had agreed on before I took on the job. When I refused to lower my price he threatened to call 911. Shaking my head in disbelief, I said “Go ahead.”

Two cruisers pulled up to the store. It must have been a slow morning for them. After talking to us separately they told him to just pay the bill. He wanted to give me a credit card and I refused, insisting on cash only. So now he had to make a trip to the bank.

14. Some people never change

Not the police but something that happened in court. My older sister was regularly beaten by her husband. For years it followed the same pattern. She left, he promised it would never happen again, she went back and he beat her. One evening my Mum and Dad came home after a night out and saw what they thought was a mannequin on our doorstep. It was my sister.

She had been so badly beaten that she had only made it as far as our house and collapsed (it was mid winter). An ambulance was called and after a few days as an inpatient my Dad persuaded my sister to talk to the police. They arrested him, he denied assaulting her and the case went to court. He took the stand and claimed that she constantly provoked him into harming her.

When asked to give an example he said that she didn’t iron his shirts correctly and that she taken in a stray cat without his permission. When he came out of jail 18 months later he attempted suicide. He wrote a letter to her from hospital demanding that she visited him every day as it was her fault but he was ready to forgive her and take her back.

The last I heard about him was that he was back in prison again for doing the same thing to his second wife.

15. When breaking your coffee pot turns into breaking news. 6 a.m. klutziness strikes again!

One time I was getting ready for work when there was a knock on the door. Three cops came and said there had been a noise complaint. I was confused as it was 6 a.m., I am not a party person, etc.

Turns out that what had happened was that a few minutes before, I had accidentally dropped my coffee pot and it shattered and made a loud noise (and spilled coffee everywhere). Apparently this klutziness upset the downstairs neighbor. But instead of calling me to ask what had happened, or coming up to see me, she called the cops instead.

Cops came and went in about two minutes after I explained what had happened. To this day I have no idea why my klutziness required a call to the cops anyway, or for the city to send three of them. Dropping your coffee is not a crime.

16. Now that’s one cop with weird priorities. I really hope the emergency wasn’t too serious

Someone called the police on me because they believed that an erotic letter, which they received from an anonymous sender, was from me. I am a happily married woman and have no interest in this man.

The man in question is also married. Prior to the visit from the police this man's wife sent me a random message on Facebook with a picture of the letter, and told me to stay the hell away from her husband. I had no idea why he thought the letter was from me, I barely know him, and the last time I spoke to him we had had an argument on text.

They threatened to call the police and I laughed it off, thinking that the police wouldn't come out over a love letter, which contained no malice of any sort. So I was stunned when the cops knocked on my door wanting “a word”.

I explained that I hadn't written it, that I'm clueless as to why I was getting accused of this and the cop told me if he wanted to he could take fingerprints etc. HE WAS ASKED ON HIS WALKY TALKY THING IF HE COULD ATTEND TO AN EMERGENCY AND HE SAID NO!!! Oh yeah, obviously this ridiculous scenario was much more important than an emergency. Wow. Imagine your emergency not being dealt with because the police are too busy at someone's house trying to figure out who a letter is from. 😔

17. If this isn’t proof that bad neighbors have long-term consequences, I don’t know what is

We had a cheap kiddie swimming pool for the summer when our sons were small. They were having a wonderful time one hot summer day jumping in and out of the pool laughing and occasionally shrieking as they splashed other. At about 11:00am, a police car pulled up in front of the house and an officer walked into the back yard.

The kids were very excited to see a policeman until he sternly started lecturing me about a noise complaint from my neighbor. I was furious (I still am 20 years later). I indignantly pointed out that the “noise complaint” was normal children’s play in the middle of the day when there were no noise restrictions.

With a pompous tone, he told me to “keep it down” and he didn’t want to have to return. This launched 5 years of noise complaints from my neighbor when my sons played in the backyard. We didn’t have the money for a legal fight. I was often forced to keep my children indoors to play because she would complain whenever they were outside.

The noise complaints ended when the kids complained to me that this neighbor was trying to scare them with her car while they were waiting for the school bus. We share a long driveway with a group of houses and all the kids wait for the bus at the entrance to the driveway. I talked with the other neighborhood children who said she yelled at them to get out of her way and drove her car very close to them to scare them to jump into the bushes. The next morning, I walked down the driveway with my sons to wait for the bus.

Sure enough, as we were waiting on the side of the driveway where the bus stopped, the neighbor came whipping into the driveway at a high speed and drove within 6 inches of me. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. I told the dispatcher that my children and I were being threatened by the driver of a motor vehicle while waiting for the bus. The police were there within minutes. The officers took my report with eager embellishment from the neighborhood children until the bus arrived. The officer tried to dismiss it as the long running neighbor dispute. I pointed out that this was a threat with a deadly weapon — a motor vehicle — and that a child could end up injured or dead.

He have a small smile and said “I’ll talk to her.” He must have put the fear of god into her because we never had another complaint and she drives carefully whenever someone is walking in the driveway. I suspect the entire department was tired of her complaints. I think it helped that this was the first complaint I had ever made against her.

But this did have long term consequences. On the good side, my sons were very careful about noise and parties as teens. Today as adults they are both highly skilled esports gamers. But on the negative side, they do not do any outdoor exercise except walking (which is pretty silent). My husband and love being outdoors and my sons do not.

18. Five police calls in one week because your baby’s clothes weren’t cute enough? Parenting level: petty

The father of my son called the police on me 5 times in a week while he was trying to manipulate the circumstances so he could find grounds to modify custody. He called saying I didn’t dress our 9-month-old son in cute enough clothes, I had expired tags (3 months expired), no insurance (I did have insurance), and that I wasn’t responding to his messages within 4 minutes.

The officers came out to do a well-check the first night. They reported the child in great condition and comfortably sleeping in his crib. That didn’t fit his narrative so, he called the next day for another well-check… he did this every day for a week.

After all, said and done, the police started calling me instead of showing up at my door. They saw me drive my expired car tags to drop my kids off at school and never once did they pull me over. They always gave friendly smile and wave. The responding officer said it best “I don’t think he knows how custody or well-checks work.”

19. Pro tip: when paying for stuff with a Platinum Amex, look the part or risk being interrogated by the fraud unit

I was on holiday and visiting some relatives Interstate… I hadn’t shaved for a few days and I admit that I was wearing very casual clothes. I popped into a liquor store on the way to buy some wine to take for dinner and selected a couple of mid-priced bottles. It was a rather depressed area with lots of low income housing…

Anyway I paid with my Platinum Amex Card and it seemed to process through the machine OK but the shop assistant said - “Oh I have to call Amex…” No big deal - I wasn’t in any hurry - so I went around the shop browsing at wines while - I assumed - he confirmed the online authorization with Amex. Next thing two cops come flying in through the door, grabbing me and demanding to know where I stole the Amex card from…

After some explanation and providing additional ID - proving who I was and that the card was mine - they let me go BUT the f*****g shop assistant called the Police NOT Amex!

20. Guess the head teacher just wasn’t a fan

When my daughter was 5 years old I was walking to her school to collect both her and her classmate who lived next door to us. I brought my well-trained, friendly Golden Retriever dog along for the walk. He was very good with children and in fact had recently taken part in a talk to the youngest children in the same school about how to safely interact with dogs.

That was on invitation from a teacher and approved by the head. On this day, I was standing outside my daughter’s classroom (outdoors, in the school playground), waiting for her and her friend to come out.

My dog was on a lead and sat calmly at my side. The head teacher appeared and said that I was not allowed to have a dog within the grounds of the school and that I must remove the dog straight away. The children were due to appear at any moment so I explained that I could not leave as I was collecting two 5 year olds and if I wasn’t outside they would not know where to find me.

The head said that if I didn’t leave he would call the police. I refused to leave, the children appeared and we walked home. Later that day the police turned up at our house. The head had called them.

The officer who attended could only laugh when he realised that I had been reported for having a well behaved, friendly dog securely on a lead for just a few minutes outside my daughter’s school -with no complaints from other parents or children. No action was taken, needless to say.

21. When you’re black, something as simple as a casual stroll through a nice neighborhood can be mistaken for a burglary stake-out

I was doing some work in a neighborhood, upper middle class white neighborhood. On a break I walked two blocks turned right,two blocks. . . ya know, to make a square. . . anyway, cops got called because I was “casing houses and peeking in windows” from the sidewalk obviously preparing to do some burglary because of my skin color and all. .. .

So I got “pulled over” frisked (cuffed ya know for my protection) and interrogated (all my pockets turned out without consent) for taking a walk on a break.

Whether it’s a case of petty revenge or sheer cluelessness, these stories remind us that common sense isn’t so common. And if nothing else, they make us a little more grateful for the patience of our law enforcement officers.

Jesse