I have really bad restless legs and I went out for a walk at 1AM just now to see if I could work off some of that energy so I could get to sleep. Had two creepy guys who might have been drunk crawl their car beside me for a full block, yelling at me. They went away when I said I'd go up to the nearest house and start screaming rape. I'm freaked out now. I didn't have my phone or personal alarm with me because I've always felt totally safe in this tiny quiet little town (the alarm's for long-distance travel) and if they'd got out of the car I'd have been doomed. I can't sleep if I don't go out for walks at night but now I'm scared to.
Okay, it happened again with the same guys. I got their license plate number and have written it down, and I really want to report it to the cops, but I'm afraid of talking to the police because of my anxiety about getting arrested over smutty fanfic. I know this is irrational and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't comb through my laptop over me reporting street harassment, but it would be nice if someone else could tell me so and offer some advice. Anyone?
Yes, I really doubt they would. I think you're fine reporting them and I don't think they'll be interested in looking through anything of yours.
I simply cannot imagine that cops would hear someone reporting harassment and respond with "we're gonna need to check your laptop to confirm this """harassment""" you've been receiving on the """streets""""
Yeah if you report someone for harassment cops don't really care about anything outside of that, they just wanna know the deets of the situations/incidents, especially if they're small town cops. The guys probably won't get arrested for a while unless they made actual verbal threats toward you (they might have a warrant put out for their arrest but the cops won't actually go looking for them usually) but hey! I might be wrong, seeing as all the police reports I've borne witness to involved theft/destruction of property rather than harassment. But yeah the police definitely won't go thru any of your shit (also remember unwarranted search and seizure is in direct violation of the constitution of the united states and any evidence about anything discovered without a warrant or probable cause can't be used against you in a court of law, so even if they decided to search any of your stuff they would be in a whole lot of trouble over nothing.) Sorry if im rambling but can confirm cops don't give a shit about anything not directly related to the incident usually.
Basically, try not to directly mention or show them decapitated enemies during your conversation, but that's basically it.
I'm also concerned that I swore back at them and threatened them with my self-defence ink spray. Back in school that would have got the whole thing thrown out and me punished.
Generally when driving about at night in low traffic areas there is little opertunity to be hassled by some random on the street with a spray unless you are pulling up to hassle them. Even so, I threatened to use my spray to get them to leave me alone seems like a pretty allowable behaviour. Really I think worst case scenario will be the police not being much help but hopefully they would be willing to do something about it.
I'm gonna ask my assisted-living social worker to help me figure out what to do. I can talk to a cop but I have a serious fear of having them drop by unannounced as a follow-up or something.
That sounds like a good plan. I hope they can help put you at ease. Not being able to feel safe while out and about is a major bummer
Found this again; ended up deciding that I'd report it if it happened a third time so there'd be a definite pattern. Haven't been going out at night since because it's cold.
