A man in Connecticut was charged with misusing the 911 system yesterday and released on $500 bond. According to the police, Raymond Roberge, 65, has called 911 on 79 separate occasions this year alone, each time a false alarm. The final straw came this weekend when Roberge called three times...so that medics could buy him a beer.
According to the Connecticut Post one time Roberge even offered emergency personel $20 "and a handful of loose change" if they would just come and hang out with him.
Our first response to hearing about a guy who called 911 to get a beer was to laugh and chalk it up to those crazy Connecticut folks who don't really understand how 911 works (see: the Farmington kid who called to find out if the pot he was growing was illegal) but the more we've thought about it the sadder this story is. If you've gotten to the point where you are calling emergency services for company—the man wasn't even calling a thinly disguised sex line—then you must be seriously lonely. Won't somebody go and hang out with Raymond Roberge? He's got beer money!
