911, This Isn't an Emergency, but ...
911 dispatchers asked to fix food orders, give traffic reports, play matchmaker.
March 5, 2009— -- Note to the frustrated, the lonely and the hungry: 911 operators don't care if your fast-food order was incomplete.
They don't want to have to give you a traffic report. And, no, they don't play matchmaker.
Yet every few months, audio is released detailing trivial -- if not ridiculous -- calls to emergency officials. The calls prompt giggles and provide popular fodder for blogs, YouTube and e-mail chains but are a very real nuisance to the authorities who are obligated to respond.
"We deal with prank calls and people checking in for the time of day," St. Lucie [Fla.] County Public Safety 911 operations coordinator Tiffany Bennett told ABCNews.com. "When you pick up that phone, you never know what's on the other end."
Her center has also gotten calls asking about holiday parade routes and how to fix a washing machine.
"Of course, you are going to giggle at some of the sillier stuff," she said.
Bennett's dispatchers took three 911 calls last week from a Fort Pierce woman who complained that McDonald's refused to give her a refund when they ran out of McNuggets.
Letreasa Goodman, 27, paid for her order but became irate when she was offered different food after being told the restaurant was out of McNuggets, according to a police report obtained by ABCNews.com.
"This is an emergency. If I would have known they didn't have McNuggets, I wouldn't have given my money," Goodman told Fort Pierce Police Officer Joshua Buday, who responded to the call, according to the report.
The report says the cashier offered to give Goodman another order -- more food for the same price -- but she refused and began yelling at the cashier before storming outside to call 911.
"Now she wants to give me a McDouble, but I don't want one," Goodman told the officer, according to the report.
Goodman was charged with misuse of a wireless 911 system.
She later told WPEC-TV that she called 911 because she didn't want the situation to get out of control.
"I wanted to jump across that counter but I understand it's not her fault, she's just doing her job," Goodman said. "She wouldn't give me my money back. That's why I was a young lady and called the police."
A spokesman for the St. Lucie Sheriff's Office, which released Goodman on a notice to appear in court, said she has been booked into the county jail nine times on various charges, ranging from making a false police report to petty theft.
