A 7-year-old’s playtime with an old cell phone turned into disaster when he called 9-1-1, prompting the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station to encourage parents to have a conversation with their children.
“A 7-year-old SCV boy was playing around with a cell phone that was not in service, but the emergency calling feature still worked,” SCV Sheriff’s Station Public Information Officer Shirley Miller said in a Facebook post Thursday. “For over a hour, he repeatedly called 9-1-1. Even though dispatchers had a hunch that they were prank calls, they still had to follow protocol in coordinating a response, especially when the boy said that he saw a ‘man with a gun.’”
After a number of phone calls, the boy told authorities that the “man with a gun was in a swimming pool,” and that the location was on “Watermelon Street.” That’s when authorities started to suspect that the phone calls were not valid.
“To make a long story short, these calls still had to be handled,” Miller said. “Since the cellphone couldn’t be traced, other research methods had to be used to find his location, and deputies were dispatched, prepared for whatever they may encounter. The boy was contacted and the calls turned out to be hoaxes.
“Lesson for parents of small children, if you haven’t explained the proper use of 9-1-1, now’s the time. It’s essential to teach them how to use it in an emergency, but also to teach them the seriousness of using it and never for pranks or jokes.”
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11 Comments
Was this the Festivadad call last night that freaked my whole neighborhood out?
No this was off of plum cyn
That call was the sheriffs dept looking for a stabbing suspect
Lisa Meza-Mejia
Jason Wan
Michelle Papier Simon
Quit giving your KIDS a cell pine to play with and have them find other ways to do so with out technology and you won’t have to worry about these types of things happening
Watermeleon Street? I’m still trying to find out why they came up with Camp Plenty Rd. 8-)
I remember when I was little I would ride my bike and play outside. If you needed mom and dad u had to use a pay phone. Why I see kids with phones as big as them is beyond me
I thought the same thing for a long time. Then took a close look around. Where are the pay phones?!? Usually in places I don’t want my kids hanging around. Also there are far far fewer of them.
I was using pay phones as a reference. I drive by empty parks and I can’t help but think the kids are playing Xbox or PlayStation. Theoretically there should be more kids around than in my/our time