If you see a "small lion" crossing the road, chances are it isn't a police emergency, even if you haven't smoked any drugs that day.
An Ontario police service unveiled the silliest 911 calls it received over the past year on Thursday in an attempt to remind residents that the emergency phone number is for… emergencies.
The Chatham-Kent Police Service released their third-annual "silliest calls" list saying, on occasion, people call police in situations that don't require an emergency police response.
The calls came from several of individuals, including a woman upset that her cat had eaten her hamburger, another who was angry she had been denied entry into a nightclub and a man who promised his injured friend he would hide drugs before the ambulance arrived.
The Top 10 Silliest Calls:
- A woman called during a massive February snowfall to complain that snowplows were making too much noise.
- A 17-year-old wanted advice on whether he could disown his mother because she wouldn't give him money.
- A man called police after a mysterious roll of carpet appeared on his lawn. (He later called to cancel when he learned his wife had placed it there.)
- A woman called after being denied entry into a nightclub and wanted police to prove she was legal drinking age.
- A man called for an ambulance for a friend, and assured the friend he would "get rid of the dope" while dispatchers were still on the line.
- A man called to alert police to a "small lion" crossing the road, assuring dispatchers that he had not smoked any drugs that day.
- A woman asked to have a man removed from her residence when he would not switch sides of the couch that they were sleeping on.
- A man called police claiming his car had been stolen. When police found it in his driveway, he claimed the suspects had returned the stolen car and fled. It was later determined that the man had seen a car similar to his own drive by his window and jumped to conclusions.
- A couple called police over an argument about which video game console they would play – an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii.
- A woman called because her cats ate her hamburger and she wanted another one.