Holly Arcand (Brown Co. Jail)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A woman who made 17 false 911 calls to law enforcement for incidents – targeting the father of her children and his girlfriend – was sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Holly Arcand, 34, pleaded no contest Monday to five counts of “false emergency 911 call,” and was also placed on probation for two years. The remaining counts were dismissed, court records show.
According to the criminal complaint, Arcand admitted to making false reports to police for incidents ranging from drug use to disturbances involving weapons.
The calls were made between October 2022 and January 2023, and Brown County Sheriff’s officials say they were all directed to an apartment on Seville Drive.
“Especially initially, our officers thought this was the real deal. But over time, we learned in talking to the individuals at the location that, the calls were directed toward that, there truly was no emergency and there was not a situation at all,” said Sgt. Marc Shield with the Brown County Sheriff’s Office in January, 2023.
According to the criminal complaint, Arcand was directing the calls toward the father of her children and his girlfriend. It says Arcand told investigators she has four children with the man and he goes “back and forth between women, and it’s frustrating because he doesn’t help out with the children.”
“I started calling 911 and the non-emergency number because he wasn’t coming around,” wrote Arcand in a statement from the criminal complaint. “‘The purpose of making these calls was to get revenge and he threatened to bring my children around other women which I did not want,’” the criminal complaint quotes her as saying. “’During all of these calls, I knew an actual emergency did not exist. I believed the police would respond, but I wasn’t sure because there have been times I have made reports and the police did not respond in the past. I understand that false reports of gun/knife calls are potentially dangerous because officers, people and neighbors could get hurt. That’s not safe at all, especially if they have families to go home to. I am sorry for doing this, and I won’t do it again.’”
Investigators say the fake calls didn’t rise to swatting until Dec. 6 when the caller said there was a man with a gun at the apartment.
That call posed “a serious weapons-related call located in an apartment complex to elicit an emergency response by officers in an emergency vehicle and a possible evacuation or lock down of adjoining tenants. Deputy Peterson reports nine officers, including Deputy Peterson, were dispatched to the Seville Drive residence in which they responded with lights and sirens in authorized police vehicles with the potential for a specialized tactical team to be initiated,” the complaint states.
“Many times, we respond to those incidents with lights and sirens or at an elevated speed, which creates additional risks to officers and members of the public,” said Shield.
With the seriousness raised, the sheriff’s office ramped up its investigation.
“It was slightly difficult at first to track this individual because they were using techniques to mask their identity,” said Shield. “They were giving fake names and fake phone numbers.”
The criminal complaint shows a court order helped link Arcand to one of the numbers used to call 911.
At a previous court hearing, the girlfriend of Arcand’s ex said she is worried for her safety moving forward.
“I’m kind of scared that she’s going to end up coming to my residence, and I just feel that if she did this, this many times, and didn’t stop doing it, she doesn’t have respect for law enforcement and that she would go even further at doing something else,” said the woman, who is only identified by her initials in the criminal complaint.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Office released the following statement:
“Knowingly making false 911 complaints is both criminal and creates a safety risk to citizens. During the course of the investigation, call takers, dispatchers and responding officers are faced with the additional challenge of determining whether there is a true emergency or not. Officers are responding, sometimes lights and siren at elevated speeds, when in fact no true emergency exists. Or sometimes, someone experiencing a true emergency may have delayed response due to the suspicion of the call being false.
Incidents like these are a drain on resources and a disruption of services to those who truly need them. Persons found to be responsible for knowingly making false reports will be charged for their actions.”
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