Quote:
Originally Posted by MBates
The police are the first to tell someone not to take such matters into their own hands yet according to the poster when he did report it they said they couldn’t do anything because he wasn’t hurt. That is a very odd position for the police to take if that is what they in fact said.
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Given my experience and understanding with how folks generally misinterpret what they are told by 'the police' (read, usually an ECO), he likely wouldn't have been told that police "couldn't do anything" but that unless he was willing to do something with the complaint, there was limited action police could take.
In the case of the OP, most times people are calling about this sort of thing they expect 'the Police' to just take their word for it and go off and arrest and jail the bad guy on their say-so, with no action other than the phone call to go on. Most folks don't seem to realize that police can't just act on their word and say-so and generally get upset when they have to be involved in the process beyond the single phone call.
If the OP called to report the assault, and wanted to see CPS when it happened, a unit should have been dispatched to come talk to him about it. As the offender would have left the scene by then, the police would have taken his statement and circulated around looking for the guy. If he didn't want to see CPS/give a statement, police likely would have circulated around and if they saw someone throwing rocks told them not to.
If he didn't see CPS/report the assault itself, there is nothing really to 'follow up on' when he sees the guy again calling him Sunshine other than the guy is existing, and not throwing rocks today. If he did report the assault, he can call police and tell them he sees the offender, and police would likely once again attend the scene and attempt to find the bad guy.
But many folks who call about things seem to think that they can just call police, tell them something happened and with no further action on their part, police will just take their word for it, find the bad person and haul them off to jail. The system just doesn't work like that, and they tend to get upset when they realize there is more involved than 'just' a phone call to police, who then 'aren't doing/won't do anything about it'.