Pizza is not just pizza anymore. It can be a lifesaver. The daughter of a woman being physically abused by her boyfriend pretended to call out a pizza order, but instead dialed up 911.
The unidentified victim, who lives in Oregon, Ohio, later told authorities that she and her boyfriend, 56-year-old Simon Lopez, got into a verbal argument before he started punching her. He screamed at her and repeated punching her so hard that she fell into a wall. When this happened, the woman’s daughter picked up a phone and pretended to make a call for pizza.
The daughter told the dispatcher: I would like to order a pizza. The dispatcher, Tim Teneyck said: You called 911 to order a pizza? The daughter said: Yeah, and gave her address. The dispatcher said: This is the wrong number to call for pizza. The daughter then responded: No, no, no… you’re not understanding me.
Well it wasn’t long after that that Tim finally caught on to what the young woman was trying to do. He then asked if medical assistance was needed.
And she responded by saying: No, with pepperoni.
The dispatcher then sent units to the address, advising them to keep their sirens off when they got close to the home. Lopez was then arrested and charged with domestic violence. Tim has been a dispatcher for 14 years and he said it was one of the strangest calls he had ever received.
Said Tim: “You see it on Facebook, but it’s not something that anybody has ever been trained for. We’re just trained to listen. Other dispatchers that I’ve talked to would not have picked up on this. They’ve told me they wouldn’t have picked up on this.”
Oregon Police Chief Michael Navarre applauded Tim’s understanding of the situation. Said the chief: “Excellent dispatch work on the part of our dispatcher. Some dispatchers may have hung up. He handled the call beautifully and it had a happy ending.”
The chief admits in his 42 years as an officer he has never heard about the tactic of ordering pizza. But he said it was a great idea.
Says the chief: “Somehow or another convey to that police dispatcher that you are in trouble, and this woman did that. She did that not with her words, but with the tone of her voice.”
