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CT Woman Calls 911 for Pizza Problem

By Ephrat Livni, Esq. on March 31, 2016 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Emergency dispatch services are always available to handle a range of issues, but pizza delivery complaints are not among them. A woman in Hartford, Connecticut, who remained unnamed in media reports, called 911 to say that she ordered a small half-bacon pizza and instead got a half-hamburger, according to UPI.

The 911 dispatcher took this in stride and by all accounts was extremely reasonable, considering the nature of this lady's emergency. But sometimes people are punished for making false emergency calls.

Handling Business

"If I order a pizza and they don't want to give me my money back, can you guys do something," the woman reportedly asked the 911 dispatcher. The operator simply instructed the woman to handle the matter directly with the pizza shop.

She even suggested that the woman would not have to go it alone. "If you go over there, you can call and have an officer meet you, but an officer's not just going to call them and ask them to give you your money back," the dispatcher said. Indeed, an officer was sent to the scene where the emergency originated.

Excessive Service?

Certainly this seems like a lot of official action for a pizza delivery problem, but the dispatcher was concerned that the angry customer might do more than just complain when she got to the shop. A cop was sent to keep everyone in line, and the local deputy police chief says it was necessary.

Hartford Deputy Chief Brian J. Foley told local news source WTNH, "Maybe a physical threat was made, maybe a verbal threat was made. Something along those lines we don't know by the 911 call, so we did have to send an officer, finding out that it was no more than a complaint over the pizza service."

This Is No Joke

Hartford reportedly receives about 160,000 calls and about half of those are not actual emergencies. Although it appears that Hartford Police did not charge this woman for her abuse of emergency services, making false 911 calls is a punishable offense.

People can and do get in trouble for abusing the system, which is severely taxed already. So do everyone a favor and handle your own food delivery emergencies without police assistance.

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