A mother who told her daughter she had been shot as an April Fools’ Day joke has been arrested after ‘multiple police units’ responded to her home.
Arnthia Willis, 58, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of unlawful request for emergency service assistance, Wichita police said.
Willis’ daughter notified 911 after her mother called and said she had been shot and then hung up, The Wichita Eagle reported.
‘Multiple police units, probably between 15-20 officers from the Wichita Police Department as well as fire department and EMS responded to the scene,’ Wichita police Lt. Ronald Hunt said.
Police had blocked streets and surrounded the home in northeast Wichita.
When no one responded, officers wearing shields and with guns drawn broke down the door, Hunt said.
Hunt said the mother was at work and called her daughter as a prank.
Her daughter told ‘I got a call from my mom and she was like “he shot me, he shot me”. I was doing like 100 on the highway.
‘I’m still shook. They take it seriously and this is on you mom.’
Police radio shows one officer tells his colleagues: ‘She’s fine, she said it was an April Fools’ joke.
Willis was arrested in Derby, a Wichita suburb.
‘April Fools´ can be a good, funny little joke in some circumstances’ but when it leads to a police response ‘it´s not funny any more,’ he said.
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