20-year-old upset over Canada’s mask mandates threatens wrong Ottawa

The Ohio man called a village in his home state instead

Police arrest people protesting against coronavirus mandates at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022. The protest began on Tuesday after more than 1,000 people driving cars and trucks from around the country converged on Parliament in a convoy inspired by protests in Canada and elsewhere around the world. (Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald via AP) (Mark Mitchell, NZME)

OTTAWA, Ohio – A man who wanted to join the protests in Canada's capital over mask mandates called in a bomb threat so police would waste their time chasing it, authorities said, but he called the wrong Ottawa — a village in Ohio.

The man, a 20-year-old from Akron, Ohio, called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office twice Monday, said sheriff’s Capt. Brad Brubaker.

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The first time he made a bomb threat, and then in a second call he said he had been shot, Brubaker said. That’s when the man found out he was talking with someone in Ohio.

“He wasn’t paying attention and just called the first number he found,” Brubaker told The Lima News. “He said he was mad about mask mandates.”

The sheriff’s office said it would ask the county prosecutor to consider charges against the man.