Tennessee Code Annotated
Tenn. Code Ann. § 65-21-117 (2026)
Interference with emergency calls
✓ current as of May 2026
- (a) An individual commits an offense if the individual knowingly prevents another individual from placing a telephone call to 911 or from requesting assistance in an emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other agency or entity the primary purpose of which is to provide for the safety of individuals.
- (b) An individual commits an offense if the individual intentionally renders unusable a telephone that would otherwise be used by another individual to place a telephone call to 911 or to request assistance in an emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other agency or entity, the primary purpose of which is to provide for the safety of individuals.
- (c) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
- (d) In this section, "emergency" means a condition or circumstance in which any individual is or is reasonably believed by the individual making a telephone call to be in fear of imminent assault or in which property is or is reasonably believed by the individual making the telephone call to be in imminent danger of damage or destruction.
Acts 2012, ch. 1003, § 1.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 3
cases (2 in the last 5 years), 2019–2025 · leading case: State of Tennessee v. William Joel Lauper (Tenn. Crim. App. 2025).
State of Tennessee v. Joseph Marquis Jeffries (Tenn. Crim. App. 2019). “T.C.A. § 65-21-117(b). To show that the Defendant was guilty of evading arrest, the State had to show that he intentionally fled from a person he knew to be a law enforcement officer and that he knew the officer was attempting to arrest him.”
State of Tennessee v. William Joel Lauper (Tenn. Crim. App. 2025). “2 (count three); two counts of aggravated assault in violation of a restraining order, a Class C felony, in violation of section 39-13-102(a)(c) (counts four and five); domestic assault resulting in bodily injury, a Class A misdemeanor, in violation of section 39-13-111(b)…”
State of Tennessee v. Rex A. Martin (Tenn. Crim. App. 2025). “Tennessee Code Annotated section 65-21-117(a) provides that it is an offense to “knowingly prevent[] another individual from placing a telephone call to 911 or from requesting assistance in an emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other agency or entity…”
Tenn. Code Ann. § 65-21-117(a): 1 case
State of Tennessee v. Rex A. Martin (Tenn. Crim. App. 2025). “Tennessee Code Annotated section 65-21-117(a) provides that it is an offense to “knowingly prevent[] another individual from placing a telephone call to 911 or from requesting assistance in an emergency from a law enforcement agency, medical facility, or other agency or entity…”
Tenn. Code Ann. § 65-21-117(b): 1 case
State of Tennessee v. Joseph Marquis Jeffries (Tenn. Crim. App. 2019). “T.C.A. § 65-21-117(b). To show that the Defendant was guilty of evading arrest, the State had to show that he intentionally fled from a person he knew to be a law enforcement officer and that he knew the officer was attempting to arrest him.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the
Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and
treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.