In 2011, police in Farmington, Connecticut got one of the least strategic 911 calls imaginable.

A man reportedly called emergency dispatch to ask how much trouble he could get in for growing one marijuana plant. This was not a legal advice hotline. It was 911.

According to reports at the time, dispatchers and police were able to identify where the call came from. Officers went to the location, found marijuana-related evidence, and the caller was charged.

The strange part is not that police solved the case. It is that the suspect basically opened the investigation himself, from his own phone, by asking the authorities to preview the consequences.

It was less “getting caught red-handed” and more “dialing red-handed into the official record.”