Buffoon in 999 call: 'Cat ate my bacon and I want to press charges'

Too polite

"Right I'm very sorry sir but it's not a 999 emergency 'cause your girlfriend let the cat eat the bacon. I do apologise but it's not a police matter."

Try: "You're an idiot. Get off the line or we'll come and arrest you when we're not busy."

No, Not him!

"as well as a request to identify the actor in Magnum PI*."

"* Tom Selleck. (Duh.)"

"Nah, the other guy with a mustache, the English guy!"

You mean the guy that played Higgins, John Hillerman?

"Yah! Higgins, that's the one! Stuck up Bastard!"

I've actually had this conversation.

Charge 'em

When these prats phone up with idiotic requests like this the cops should charge something like £25 for wasting police time.

And this should be court enforceable with Community Payback if the chumps don't cough up.

If this is a big problem, would it not make sense to have a layer-2 switchboard to shunt these calls to? I have tentatively called it TMS (Triaged Message Service is what you'd call it in public; but the acronym would, of course, stand for The Muppet Show).

As I see it, the biggest wastes of time are:

1. Identifying that it's a waste of time

2. Backing gracefully out of the conversation

...not a lot you can do about the identifying part; but the backing out gracefully part is what eats the time and can be safely passed off elsewhere.

You'd probably only need one of these centres to cover the whole country. You'd have to record which force the call came from; and you'd also need a way of bouncing it back at high priority in case it turns out the triaging was wrong (some people are circumspect and a lot of people get downright weird in an emergency).

The emergency switchboard could bounce callers there mid-syllable and the caller would have to start from the beginning; but that's just part of the education process. Explaining why that isn't a matter for the police; the consequences of tying up emergency lines and the possible penalties that can accrue wouldn't require that much training; and can all be addressed in the "gracefully exiting the conversation" thing; and they would be able to spend a little more time on it than the emergency line; thus educating callers better and -just maybe- lessening the problem overall.

You'd have to send back reports to the originating service/force/station - they'll all want a copy of the blooper reel.

Shouldn't be too expensive (staffing levels would depend upon the scale of the problem and I don't have those numbers), and would reclaim precious seconds on the emergency line.

Seeking Contestants To Join In The Fun!

"West Yorkshire Police reveal their worst summer nuisance calls"

And they're doing this in order to... encourage competition?

Clearly the law needs changing, how can a cat get away with such a heinous crime?

I hope everyone here mocking this realises that this sets a dangerous legal precedent and soon your bacon will be stolen with the culprits claimings "it wont me guv'nor it was the cat wot did it"

It won't stop there, dogs so I have heard, have a penchant for sausages, soon all your pork products will be stolen by the animals or nefarious criminals using the animals.

Cat ate my bacon

"Police: Right, sir, it's not a criminal offence to let a cat eat your bacon, OK?"

Not sure there's no crime here, although granted it's a very minor one and certainly not an emergency - surely the feline bacon filching is theft?

Back in the late-seventies

Me and my mate used to call the police* (from a public call box!) and say, in a sing-song voice, "We're high on cannabis!"

Anon, 'cos, Jeez! it's only still the 21st century**!

*the direct no., not 999!

**aka, in the UK, the 19th.

This reminds me

of the time my ex called the local police number (pre-dating 101) to report a noise nuisance, they said to call the council (who had told us to call the police). The police refused to attend. At which point she told them "there WILL be a crime because my boyfriend (me) is about ready to go round there and strangle the little shit!". They turned up and made the idiot next door turn down his stereo.*

*yes we'd tried all the usual, ringing the doorbell, which was ignored, etc etc.

avon police had a tweetathon https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/newsroom/features/24-hour-tweetathon-the-highlights/

the best is probably : Man reported missing in Bath - he has been found safe and well in his own bed

there's a routine in here somewhere

Dispatcher: Speak up, man. The cat got your tongue?

Caller: No, my bacon.

The odd thing is, we got to where we are today through evolution, only passing on the genes of the best survivors. What we do now is try and keep everyone alive to breed, thereby preventing our evolution and worsening our future chances as a race. Seems very strange to me.

Emergency Donut

"The serious point is that a lot of the time we're talking about a matter of seconds between us being able to get to a genuine emergency effectively and not being able to, and therefore having people's lives put at risk."

Oh yes, the emergency crossword that needs doing while eating the emergency doughnut

Be grateful that W. Yorks have professionals answering their emergency calls. Compare that with the scumbag 911 operator in the States who hung up on a caller trying to save a dying man - because he didn't like her attitude.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/new-mexico-911-operator-tells-caller-to-deal-with-it-yourself-after-shooting-1.3171526

The Cat

Is the cat's name Eric?

Devil's Advocate

If the call were dropped too soon as a time-waster, you know what's going to happen?

One day someone is going to be making a genuine call to 999 when in the same room as someone with a gun or a knife. If you are put in a position of threat can you predict what you would do or say? You cannot, it is your primitive reactions that will take over and you may not have any control over your actions.

The recipient of the call should be able to ascertain from certain clues that you are in a dangerous situation which needs immediate attention, even though you are not capable of explicitly asking for help. Part of the reason for keeping the call open is to make absolutely sure that it is not an emergency.

So when the press find out that what sounded like a hoax call turned out to be murder, who will they criticise?

but....being deprived of bacon late at night when you have the munchies is a serious problem well deserving of an emergency solution

Perhaps the answer is for the 999 call team to have the ability to drop the call to the nearest kebab or pizza joint?

An eye for an eye

Seems like the best solution is to eat his girlfriends pussy.

Are you sure it wasn't Lester who called the police about the bacon?

He was writing this week about cooking bacon after going to the pub, and his daughter is named Kat....

Do you think the truth is he fell asleep post pub while trying to cook so Kat scoffed his bacon as he snored?

And to think...

...these calls came from people who were not in prison yet.