Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Key Takeaways
- Interfering with 911 call claims often stem from domestic disputes.
- False 911 calls aim to harass or provoke a fast and vigorous police response.
- Penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies.
- Calling 911 with no emergency can be a crime.
- Defendants can challenge evidence of identity, interference or intent.
Interfering with a 911 call means someone claims an emergency and that a person interfered with an emergency 911 call. Making a false 911 call when no emergency exists (for example Swatting) is a crime too. Minnesota Statute Section 609.78.
Domestic conflicts
Most interfering with a 911 charges stem from a police visit to a home after a domestic disturbance complaint. Police officers arrive and investigate whether they perceive probable cause to charge and arrest for a crime. When they do, typical charges are domestic assault, disorderly conduct and interference with an emergency 911 call.
Though an interfering with 911 call charge can be a misdemeanor or felony, almost always they charge it as a Gross Misdemeanor. For more about:
Minnesota Statute Section 609.78 lays out several ways a person can commit the interfere 911 call and false 911 call crimes. Here is the key language from the statute’s Gross Misdemeanor subdivision:
“Whoever does the following is guilty of a gross misdemeanor:
Minn. Stat. § 609.78, Subd. 2. Gross misdemeanor offenses
(1) intentionally interrupts, disrupts, impedes, or interferes with an emergency call or who intentionally prevents or hinders another from placing an emergency call …”
For a discussion of intentionally interfering generally, see:
Obstruction, Interfering & Resisting Arrest
False 911 call & SWATting
False 911 call charges typically allege a person making an emergency 911 call, where no emergency exists, as a way to harass or hurt someone. Sometimes those calls falsely claim a violent crime is now happening in order to get police excited and to get a police response of overwhelming force.
Sometimes this results in police Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team responding forcefully upon an innocent victim. This can endanger the safety of both the innocent victim as well as the safety of responding police officers. Swatting is the opposite of “Interfering with 911 call,” since in the case of swatting the allegation is that no emergency existed.
And here is the key language from the statutes Misdemeanor and Gross Misdemeanor subdivisions of Minnesota Statutes Section 609.78:
Subdivision 1. Misdemeanor offenses. Whoever does the following is guilty of a misdemeanor:
(4) makes a call for emergency police, fire, medical, or ambulance service, knowing that no police, fire, or medical emergency exists;
(6) makes or initiates an emergency call, knowing that no emergency exists, and with the intent to disrupt, interfere with, or reduce the provision of emergency services or the emergency call center’s resources, remains silent, or makes abusive or harassing statements to the call recipient.Subd. 2. Gross misdemeanor offenses. Whoever does the following is guilty of a gross misdemeanor:
(2) places an emergency call and reports a fictitious emergency with the intent of prompting an emergency response by law enforcement, fire, or emergency medical services personnel;(3) violates subdivision 1, clause (6), after having been previously convicted or adjudicated delinquent for violating that clause. …”
Minn. Stat. § 609.78
A prosecutor can charge both Interfering with 911 call and false 911 call as a felony, if the aggravating factors in the statute are alleged.
In one case, a person called 911 to ask the 911 operator to tell police to stop knocking on her door asking to speak with her. She was convicted of making a call for emergency police service, knowing that no police emergency existed, under Minnesota Statutes section 609.78, subdivision 1(4). State v. Gills, nonprec, a25-0774 (Minn Court of Appeals May 4, 2026).
Calling 911 Can Get You Arrested
The possible implications of this law:
- Calling 911 when no emergency: a crime, arrest, jail.
- 911 call when an emergency, interrupted by someone: a crime, arrest, jail.
- Not calling 911: no crime, no arrest, no jail.
False claims of a weapon is another common problem with 911 calls. This is a type of violation in the false 911 call crime statute. The motive usually is either wanting a faster law enforcement response, or to harass or endanger the victim (e.g. Swatting).
Defense issues: interfere 911 call
In an Interfering with 911 call case, as in any criminal prosecution, the burden of bringing witnesses and evidence to the trial is on the prosecutor, not the defendant. And the defendant is presumptively innocent, unless the prosecutor can overcome that innocence with actual evidence, to the satisfaction of a jury. And the following defenses may apply:
- Identity.
- Lack of emergency.
- Act of interference lacking.
- Lack of specific intent.
Under Minnesota Statutes § 609.78, the default penalty for a false 911 call is a misdemeanor conviction with up to 90 days jail and $1,000 fine. However, if the caller reports a “fictitious emergency with the intent of prompting an emergency response” or has the specified prior misdemeanor false 911 call conviction, then the maximum penalty of a gross misdemeanor conviction with up to 364 days jail and a $3,000 fine.
Under Minnesota Statutes § 609.78, the default penalty for an interfering with 911 emergency call is a gross misdemeanor conviction with up to 364 days jail and a $3,000 fine.
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