Police in Western Australia have confirmed they sent multiple officers to an emergency call that turned out to be a screaming man with a “serious fear” of spiders.
A concerned passerby was walking outside a house in suburban Perth when they heard a toddler screaming and a man repeatedly shouting “Why don’t you die?”
After they called triple zero, officers arrived to find a man “trying to kill a spider”, who apologised for having an extreme fear of the arachnid.
The Wanneroo police Twitter account posted a screenshot of the police log of the incident on Wednesday morning.
“Caller walked past the AA and heard a male screaming out ‘Why don’t you die’ – repeatedly,” the log read. “The toddler inside was screaming … caller doesn’t know them, but has seen them a few times when walking”.
Twenty minutes later, officers on the scene provided an update.
“Police spoke with all parties who advised that husband had only been trying to kill a spider (has serious fear of spiders). Apologised for inconvenience to police.
“No injuries sighted (except to spider). No further police involvement required”.
An officer at Wanneroo police station confirmed to Guardian Australia that the incident occurred, but declined to provide further comment.
The Wanneroo police account had tweeted the screenshot on Wednesday morning, but it was later deleted.
A spokesman for WA police said the post had only been deleted because it included the screenshot of police communications. He said the account should have been transcribed in a separate post.
“There’s nothing actually wrong with the contents of it,” he said. “There were just some typos in it, things like that.”
In 2015, a similar incident occurred in Sydney when police attended a house to find a “quite embarrassed” man throwing furniture at a spider, alone.
