Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: Wasting police time

It depends on what you mean by "wasting police time." It is a crime to file a false police report in California (Penal Code 148.5), report a false emergency (Penal Code 148.3, to give false identification information to a police officer (Penal Code 148.9) or to prevent a police officer from carrying out his or her duties (e.g.; Penal Code 69). Anyone of those could (as well as a few other crimes not mentioned), under the right circumstances, be considered wasting a police officer's time. But there is no official crime entitled "wasting a police officer's time".