Reporting Suspicious Behavior – Anonymity

This is Part 5 of a 5 part series on Reporting Suspicious Behavior. It’s from a flyer handed out by the police at the North Precinct Advisory Council.

Some people are reluctant to call 911 because they are concerned that the person(s) about whom they called will know they reported them. You need not be concerned about this. When officers make contact with a person about whom you called, it is not typical that they will tell the person, ‘Mrs. Martin over at 3001 said you were causing trouble over here.’ While it is preferred that a person provide their normal contact number so the police can call back to verify information, it is not necessary.  The important thing is to report the activity. Further, you can request that your name not be disclosed. You can also request to remain anonymous. And, you can also request that officers not contact you in person. If you are concerned that you will be identified as the person who called 911, just relay to the call take that you don’t want your name disclosed and you don’t want contact.

This concludes our series on reporting suspicious behavior. Remember that it is always better to report a person or situation and have it turn out not to be a crime or hazard than to not report and find out later a crime was in fact committed. By the way, you won’t get in trouble for reporting something you feel is suspicious and upon checking it out, it is discovered that nothing was amiss.