Elderly man calls 999 daily, recites his poem to cops

Use emergency line judiciously — Ajman Police

Every day an elderly Emirati man calls the police operations room hotline 999, asking cops to listen to his new poem, officials said yesterday.

“I ask people not to misuse the emergency number,” said Lieutenant Colonel Hisham Abdullah Bu Shab, Director of Police Operation Room at Ajman Police.

“We receive a number of calls on the emergency number for general inquiries, wrong numbers or bogus emergencies which placed an extra burden on emergency resources,” he said.

The elderly man, meanwhile insisted on reading his full poem and took a long time, the official said.

The man stopped calling after a while but his calls were handled patiently. During Ramadan, many people called to ask about iftar time, the officer said.

Non-emergency cases

He said people have to understand that the number 999 is for those who are in an emergency such as an accident, heart attack, or a fire. People should not call 999 for non-emergency issues.

The Operations Room of the Ajman Police received 177,000 calls during the first quarter of this year, about 69,000 calls per month and only 16,000 calls were emergency calls.

Police have inaugurated a new operation room equipped with smart technology aimed at faster response time to security and traffic accidents.