You’re not yourself when you’re drunk. One woman from Germany called the police to report that her husband had been murdered at their home, because she wanted a car towed from her driveway.
So no, the husband wasn’t actually dead; in fact, there might not have been a husband at all. It all happened in the Bavarian town of Berchtesgaden, the Washington Post reports, citing the national news agency dpa, and the woman was severely intoxicated. This explains why she thought filing a false police report would help her get the job done faster.
The job in question was having a car that was blocking her garage towed. According to a spokesman for southern Upper Bavaria police, Stefan Sonntag, “The woman thought, if she calls in a murder the police will get there faster.”
She was right, but only partially: the police did arrive at the address fairly quickly, but they didn’t help her out with her towing issue. Instead, they took away her keys when she tried to get in the car and drive off, and then put her in handcuffs, before formally charging her.
According to the report, the woman, whose identity has not been made revealed to the press, will face a hefty fine and possible jail time. Calling the cops to report a fake emergency is a crime, as she must know now.
This isn’t the first incident of the kind, and it won’t be the last either. In the U.S., there have been several recent instances of reported kidnappings of children when a car was stolen that proved to be fake: the women thought police would work harder and recover the stolen cars faster if they thought a child was inside at the time when they were taken.
Needless to say, lying to cops is a bad idea. Always. In addition to getting you in trouble, it also means wasting police resources on wild goose chases, while real, actual crimes (murder and kidnappings included) are happening elsewhere.
The job in question was having a car that was blocking her garage towed. According to a spokesman for southern Upper Bavaria police, Stefan Sonntag, “The woman thought, if she calls in a murder the police will get there faster.”
She was right, but only partially: the police did arrive at the address fairly quickly, but they didn’t help her out with her towing issue. Instead, they took away her keys when she tried to get in the car and drive off, and then put her in handcuffs, before formally charging her.
According to the report, the woman, whose identity has not been made revealed to the press, will face a hefty fine and possible jail time. Calling the cops to report a fake emergency is a crime, as she must know now.
This isn’t the first incident of the kind, and it won’t be the last either. In the U.S., there have been several recent instances of reported kidnappings of children when a car was stolen that proved to be fake: the women thought police would work harder and recover the stolen cars faster if they thought a child was inside at the time when they were taken.
Needless to say, lying to cops is a bad idea. Always. In addition to getting you in trouble, it also means wasting police resources on wild goose chases, while real, actual crimes (murder and kidnappings included) are happening elsewhere.