A Florida man has been accused of misusing the emergency telephone system after he allegedly called 911 to gripe about being served tiny clams at a local seafood restaurant.
Nelson Agosto of Stuart, in the southeast region of the state, was arrested Dec. 18 after he allegedly made the 911 calls from Crabby’s Seafood Shack.
“He was complaining that the clams he was eating were so small. He didn’t want to pay for them,” Sgt. Brian Bossio of the Stuart Police Department told TCPalm.
It all started because the 51-year-old Agosto was on his lunch break and “dying to eat some clams,” according to The Smoking Gun.
Agosto told the website he was disappointed that the restaurant wanted to charge him $12 for a plate of tiny clams that had “nothing in the shell.”
When restaurant staff refused to give Agosto a refund, he allegedly called 911 hoping an officer would help resolve what he perceived to be a gross miscarriage of justice.
Instead, the dispatcher told Agosto he needed to call the non-emergency line, according to Orlando station WFTV.
“You need to call that number. This is 911, for emergencies,” the dispatcher said. “Hang up and call that number and they will help you.”
A short time later, Agosto called back griping that nobody was answering the non-emergency line and that he still needed an officer to arrive on the scene.
You can hear both calls below:
The dispatcher calmly explained the line was working and instructed Agosto to call that number instead of 911.
By the way, an officer did show up at the restaurant, but just to serve Agosto a notice to appear in court for one count of misuse of 911, a misdemeanor.
“It was an arrest, but the officer did not take the guy to jail,” Bossio told TCPalm.
Agosto is due in court Jan. 11, but there’s no telling if he may clam up once in front of a judge.
He did tell The Smoking Gun he did not intend to misuse the emergency system.
“I didn’t know the rules for 911,” he said.
Related
Before You Go
