Rikki Don't Use That Number

Whenever anyone calls 911, police, firefighters — or both — are obliged to respond, taking them away from other duties for the duration of the incident.

So Wauwatosa authorities are getting more than a bit tired of a Wauwatosa man who seems to think the emergency number amounts to a personal taxi service.

According to police reports:

At 1:18 a.m. Sunday, a 34-year-old Wauwatosa man was issued a citation — not his first — at his home in the 10700 block of West Keefe Avenue for misuse of the 911 emergency number.

The man had called 911 two hours earlier requesting transport to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee for back pain. Both and paramedics responded, and he was taken to St. Joseph’s.

After he returned home, he called 911 three times asking the police to pick him up and take him back to the hospital because he had forgotten his cell phone.

He had been cited for on Oct. 19. In that instance he was cited at 2:15 a.m. after he called 911 five times to ask whether police had his cell phone following an earlier police dispatch to investigate a verbal altercation at the man’s home.

The man has been admonished numerous times not to call 911 in a non-emergency, the report said. He was fined $303 this time.