In my previous cop blogs I focused on exciting and humorous calls, but I have failed to mention the extremely stupid and non police calls that I have personally been dispatched to as well as other members of my department.

When I was in the academy they tried to prepare us as much as possible for the types of calls we would get.  They trained us on anything from shootouts to barking dogs to traffic accidents.  Now I know it is impossible for an academy to prepare recruits for any and all types of calls, but I must say it is true that people are convinced that the police can handle anything and everything, and dont even think about not servicing a citizen when they have demands.  Now, dont get me wrong, I dont mind handling some non-police type calls, but some of the things I have dealt with are ridiculous.  I will list a few of the idiotic and waste-of-time calls I have to handle.  These are not in any particular order.

I had only been on the job for two months, but even as a hard charging rookie I knew that this was a complete waste of time.  It was a rare rainy day in sunny Arizona, when I received a suspicious activity call at a local apartment complex.  Apparently some local juvenile thugs had taken it upon themselves to put mud on a playground slide.  How dare those children take it upon themselves to play in the rain and put mud on a slide.  I SAY THROW THE BOOK AT THEM!!!!

Night time always seems to bring out the freaks and idiots, but it also shows us there are people who have nothing better to do than to call the police to solve all their problems.  So, it is 3 am and I get dispatched to a private care home for the elderly.  The caller wanted me to try and get in touch with her father who was staying at this particular care home.  I thought no big deal, maybe there was a death in the family something of that nature.  No, I was wrong of course.  The lady who was calling lived in Hawaii, and the number to her fathers care home had changed and her brother would not give her the new number.  So, she wanted me to go to the care home, get the new phone number and then call her back with the number.  Are you kidding me?  Needless to say she did not get the new number, nor did I go to the care home.

Then there was the time I received another citizen assist type call.  This time dispatch cleared the call through a Sgt. before handing to me, and with good reason.  Some fool called in to dispatch asking if we would help him out.  The caller stated he was about 20 miles away from his house, he was refilling his pool and he forgot to turn the water off.  So, he was afraid he was going to overflow his pool.  Lucky for me I had been on long enough that I could tell dispatch to stuff it.  The Sgt. who authorized the call ended up going out there himself.

For some reason Thanksgiving in my town has seen two fatal accidents two years in a row.  But, not Thanksgiving 2008.  My day started with a caller complaining about a loud rooster and 7 am and ended with another lovely citizen complaining that their neighbor was out using a leaf blower.  First of all it is not illegal to have a crowing rooster and the last I checked there was not ordinance against using a leaf blower on Thanksgiving Day.  But, someone needs to tell that to the fine citizens and then let dispatch know, so they quit sending out those types of calls.

There are many more that I have gone to over the years, but these were just a few I could think of off the top of my head.