ecochrane@alligator.org
A Gainesville man was arrested at about midnight Tuesday after he reportedly made six false 911 calls in the span of a half hour.
Alachua County Sheriff’s deputies went to Roberto Lopez’s home at 2958 SW 39th Ave. around 11:45 p.m. to serve an injunction from his neighbors, whom Lopez had yelled at and threatened on multiple occasions, according to a police report.
When the deputies tried to serve the injunction, Lopez, 58, screamed at the deputies and accused them of siding with his neighbors and harassing him because he is Hispanic.
Shortly after the deputies left, Lopez began calling 911 and screaming that law enforcement would not help him because of his race and that someone needed to come to his home. He called six times within a half hour and yelled at the operators so loudly that three nearby officers overheard him, according to the report.
“Thankfully we do not have to deal with false 911 calls often,” Gainesville Police spokesman Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email. “Folks generally understand that the 911 system is for emergencies only.”
Since Jan. 1, Lopez has called 911 at least 16 times to complain about harassment from neighbors. When police responded, his neighbors said Lopez had been instigating arguments and yelling racial slurs, according to the report.
“Any false call is taking that person away from answering a potential life-threatening call,” Tobias said.
Officers arrested Lopez for one charge of misuse of the 911 system. As of press time, he remained in jail in lieu of a $15,000 bond.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 1/14/2015 under the headline “local man falsely calls 911 six times in less than one hour"]
