No, it's not their job. Police respond to things, but they are basically not allowed to be proactive, barring a riot. There's a ton of reasons for this, including that without an actual law broken tailing this guy could be construed as police harassment, would likely involve a violation of some Constitutional right or other, and, of course, the real reason, that they simply don't have time for that sort of thing.
When you set policy for things like police, you get tradeoffs. Protect one person's rights, and you'll block actions the police could have taken to stop another. This isn't intended as political commentary and I don't have any particular thing in mind; think of it as an engineering view of law enforcement. You Can't Have It All. (And Certainly Not For Free.)
But making death threats is not a right. It's a crime.
I really don't understand all the apologizing for law enforcement that refuses to enforce the law in this case. The victim was harmed a lot, and still no one wants to see the crook stopped?
If they were made over the internet, it might take a Federal Law Enforcement Officer (FBI or U.S. Marshal) to make the arrest or get the arrest warrant. I believe interstate death treats become a federal manner.
And with all due respect to TC and Mike, it often takes "pull" to get Federal law enforcement involved. They handle all the "big fish". For example, if your start up was hacked, they would be the ones to call, but they won't move on anything less than $50,000 or $500,0000 worth of damages.
(Honestly, it seems the kind of circumstance where I can't really think of anything the police should be able to do to anyone who seems dangerous or "suspicious", because both are very much judgement calls.)
So suppose the cops arrest him. He is unlikely (statistically speaking) to be held without bail, so he's out in a day or two. Then you have a trial. Suppose you have people like me on the jury -- I know that morons threaten to kill each other all the time on the internet, in person, and on CB radio and via snail mail and every other means of communication man has invented. I would likely acquit unless you can present some serious evidence of actual intent, and owning a gun having a previous a felony would not cut it.
So now what ? Is the situation better or worse ? It better be LOT better, because society is collectively out of quite a bit of money by the time all that is said and done.
I don't think Arrington is necessarily over reacting to the threat, either. Without knowing the details it's impossible to tell, and even if you knew the details you might be uncertain. There is a very wide zone between something that will justify society's all-out response and what makes you feel creepy.
There is probably no way for society to make everyone feel warm and comfy about all their interactions with each other. Think about if we had a general policy of jailing people based on a definition of "threatens physical harm" that was that lose. Think back over every bad relationship you ever had . . . are you absolutely sure that some disasterous former manager or former employee could not have gotten you jailed ? Absolutely sure ?
Why can't you have a very brief trial where you explain the definition of assault and present the uncontroversial evidence of the assault, and that's that?
Not trying to argue. Just don't see why that wouldn't work. the jury should just be like "well, it's a crime, and he did it" instead of saying it's common so we'll ignore it.
> Why can't you have a very brief trial where you explain the definition of assault and present the uncontroversial evidence of the assault, and that's that?
The reason I've heard that assault charges aren't always filed is that there has to be, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the exact wording, "sufficient reason " to believe that the accuser can and will carry out his/her thread in order to make it assault.
The situation often cited for this is a 90 lb weakling gets drunk and threatens to beat up someone who fights in MMA for a living. Since the thread isn't credible this technically isn't assault.
On the other hand, if I shove a gun in your face and threaten to kill you then that very much is assault as my threat is very credible.
Some where in between is the line between assault and just being a dick, which isn't a crime.
This is often why many verbal assault cases aren't tried.
The other, unfortunate, reason is that court time is very finite. Prosecutors can only take so many cases to court and prosecutors know that people will often make these types of threats for a short period of time and then just leave that person's life.
If that's the case then the situation often resolves itself and they don't have to take up their valuable court space with this case.
Honestly, I don't want trials to ever be quick. If you're talking about putting someone in jail, you better be really freaking sure the guy is a threat to society and not just having a really bad week.
I have threatened bloody murder to many a bad library author, and the last thing I need is to get jailed because of that ;)
