Some of you know the story already. Yesterday morning, I was startled to get a phone call from Bob. He was sitting in the back of a St Paul police car, having just gotten the cuffs removed.
Evidently, he has this neighbor that is crazy. Like, really crazy. He thinks he owns the streetside next to his house. Well, Wednesday evening was declared a snow emergency in Minneapolis, so Bob could not park his van in front of his house. Instead, he parked it on a side-street near his crazy neighbor. Yesterday morning, when he went out to start his van and head off to work, the crazy neighbor came out and started yelling at him for parking there.
After trying to explain the situation with the crazy neighbor, Bob gave up and left. He made it into down town St Paul and almost missed a turn, so he was half-way in 2 lanes. A St Paul cruiser was behind him and pulled him over. After getting out of the car, pausing, and getting back into the car, waiting until another squad arrived, and then getting out of their respective cars with the holster snap undone, Bob figured he was not going to have a good morning.
Anyway, the officers approached the van, yelled at him to remove the keys and drop them out the window. To which Bob told them that he was a disabled-vet with bad knees and he had nice work clothes on, so please don’t throw him on the ground, as he dropped the keys. He got out of the van, got handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad. After 40 minutes of trying to figure out what is going on, St Paul calls Minneapolis and says something like “We have the stolen van, but danged if we don’t think the driver is the owner…”
So, now we get back to crazy neighbor. Evidently, as Bob was leaving for work, he said something like “we’ll see about you parking here again”, only Bob didn’t think much of it. Crazy neighbor, however, proceeded to call 911 on a disposable cell phone and claim that his white van with bob’s plates on it was sitting warming up in front of his house, he thought the doors were locked, however they apparently weren’t because some large guy in a blue jacket hopped in and drove off towards St Paul.
When the operator asked his name, he gave Bob’s name as well as Bob’s address, so the dispatcher thought that Bob had called in a stolen vehicle report and the guy who stole it was claiming to be him… Quite a mess.
Anyway, after Minneapolis talked to St Paul for a while, Minneapolis looks back in their logs and notices that there is a pattern of 911 calls in that neighborhood. They then trace the “untraceable” cell phone to crazy neighbor. Bob gets let go, calls me, and proceeds on to work.
This morning, Bob wakes up to a Ramsey County Deputy and an FBI agent at his door. He looks out the window and sees crazy neighbor being escorted into a police car. FBI agent tells Bob that crazy neighbor has more than 60 prank 911 calls in the last few months, most from Minneapolis, but quite a few from Kenosha, WI. Apparently, crazy neighbor’s mother lives in Kenosha, which is why the FBI got involved, it being over state lines and all that.
Long story short, crazy neighbor is probably not getting out of jail anytime soon because the FBI is going to charge him with terroristic threats.
Note to self: stop making prank 911 calls from MY cell phone.
On the bright side: Is crazy neighbors house one you might like? It will probably go on the market soon 🙂