Buckeye Reporter

Mask mandates in Canada have stirred emotions on both sides of the issue, but an Ohio man took it a step further and had hoped to express his opposition to the requirements by calling that country’s capitol, but it turns out he dialed up the wrong Ottawa. 

According to  Lima News, the man, a 20-year-old Akron resident, allegedly called in a bomb threat hoping to divert police’s attention away from the protests. Instead, the newspaper noted that he actually called the wrong Ottawa. The publication noted that the man, whose name was not released, used Google to track down the number for police in Ottawa, Canada, but ended up calling the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office two times.  

“He wasn’t paying attention and just called the first number he found,” Putnam County Sheriff’s Capt. Brad Brubaker said in a WEWS News Channel 5 report. “He said he was mad about mask mandates.”

According to the News report, the man called the office making a bomb threat, and during a second call he claimed to have been shot, Brubaker noted. He also told the newspaper that the dispatcher stayed on the line with the man to determine what was going on. 

The Lima News also noted that once the man learned that he was talking to Ohio and not Canada, he admitted that the calls were a ploy to waste the time of Canadian authorities and distract them from the trucker protests in the Canadian capitol.  He also admitted to authorities that there was no bomb, according to the publication’s report. 

Brubaker told the Lima News that he had notified authorities in Canada about the calls that were intendent for their capitol, and he also noted that a report will be filed with the Putnam County prosecutor for possible charges related to the incident.