Telephone Harassment

[NewYorkWoman]

I am currently being harrassed via the phone by a member of the NYPD. I'm curious what sort of evidence I need before reporting him to my local precinct and also whether it is worth doing this...in my experience fellow officers blow this sort of behavior off and don't take complaints seriously.

Some background: A couple friends & I met this officer the night of my birthday. He joined in on our conversation and talked with us for, at tops, 45 minutes. The only information he got from me during this conversation was 1-my first name, 2-the general neighborhood I lived in and 3-my birth date (obviously). Now a few weeks later I am receiving sexually explicit phone calls from him (I recognise his voice & he uses his first name). I have *69-ed the calls but they are made from a "private" number & are blocked. This guy is smart enough not to leave messages on my machine-obviously they could be used against him.

What is disturbing is that this guy has obviously used police data bases to get info about me. I also have no idea whether he is capable of violent behavior, etc.. as I only spoke to him for a very short time, once in my life.

Help! What do yo think is the next step?

[aaron]

I suggest you tape record the calls - New York is a "one party consent" state, meaning you can record calls without telling the other person as long as you are a party to the conversation. Then file a police report, providing the recordings, and don't say anything about who you think is doing it. They should be able to configure your phone such that even though the caller ID is blocked, they can figure out who is calling.

For the calls, you would want to note the date and time of the call. You would want to tell the person not to call any more, that the contact is unwelcome, and do nothing which might be construed as encouraging him to call back.