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

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.

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”!

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.

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.

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.

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.