MANHATTAN, KS — Riley County authorities say a Manhattan woman was arrested after officers traced a series of silent 911 calls to a phone that did not belong to her. The calls were made Monday evening from the area of 222 N. Juliette Avenue, according to the Riley County Police Department activity report.
Police said the same caller contacted 911 sixteen times and never reported an emergency when officers arrived nearby. Investigators later concluded the device was stolen, and the woman was accused of using it to make false requests for emergency assistance.
Silent 911 calls triggered police response near Juliette Avenue
Officers filed the report just after 5:30 p.m. Monday, listing harassment by telecommunications device, transmitting or communicating false information to request emergency service assistance, and interference with law enforcement officers.
Each time the 911 calls came in, the caller stayed silent. When officers responded to the area, they found no emergency was being reported, according to the police activity report.
That repeated pattern led investigators to treat the calls as intentional misuse of the emergency system rather than a mistaken dialing incident. The report says the woman had a phone that was not hers and was using it to place the calls.
Police say the phone did not belong to the suspect
According to the Riley County Police Department, the woman was in possession of a phone that belonged to someone else. Investigators say that device was used to make all sixteen calls to 911.
Emergency dispatch centers rely on accurate information to determine when officers, firefighters and medics are needed. Silent calls can still pull resources into an area, especially when they are repeated over a short period of time.
In this case, officers were sent to the location each time they received the calls, but no emergency was found once they arrived. Police did not say how the phone was stolen or how it came into the woman’s possession.
Woman refused citations and resisted arrest, police say
Officers attempted to issue a notice to appear, but the woman refused to sign the citations, according to the report. Police then tried to take her into custody.
The report says she resisted arrest during that effort. She was later identified as Tantaliyah Parson, 27, of Manhattan.
Parson was arrested at 9 p.m. Monday on the same three counts listed in the police report. Those charges were harassment by telecommunications device, transmitting or communicating false information to request emergency service assistance, and interference with law enforcement officers.
Bond set at $5,000 after the arrest
After the arrest, Parson remained jailed on a $5,000 bond, according to the Riley County Police Department. No additional court dates or case details were included in the activity report.
The police department’s account places the case within a broader effort to protect emergency lines from misuse. Calls to 911 are intended for urgent situations, and repeated silent calls can create unnecessary dispatches and delay response to real emergencies.
Authorities have not said whether anyone else was involved, and the investigation appears to be focused on the repeated calls made Monday evening in Manhattan.
Charges center on misuse of emergency services and police interference
The three accusations in the case reflect separate parts of the encounter: the alleged use of a communications device to harass, the alleged transmission of false information to obtain emergency aid, and the alleged resistance to officers carrying out their duties.
All of those allegations came from the same sequence of events on Monday evening near Juliette Avenue. Police say the silent calls created the emergency response, then escalated when officers tried to resolve the situation in person.
For now, the case remains an arrest and booking matter described in the Riley County Police Department activity report. The department’s account says the investigation began with the repeated 911 calls and ended with Parson in custody.
