To the guy who called me this afternoon: The threats weren't necessary

I don't answer calls from people or numbers I don't recognize.

I'm sure you've all been through this. It's usually someone trying to sell you something, or a politician or a survey you don't want to take.

Except sometimes I forget my hard-earned lesson and I take the call.

Such was the case a few moments ago, when I answered a call from a Joplin number and the man immediately began shouting at me. He gave me his name and told me I needed to take his name off my website or he was going to call a lawyer.

At first, I didn't remember the name, but then it clicked. I knew the post he was talking about- the Jasper County Prosecuting Attorney's office had filed a domestic assault charge against him and I remembered the comments on the post about the man having anger issues.

Without ever lowering his voice, the man let me know the charges had been dropped and once again threatened to sic a lawyer on me. Increasing the volume, he said, "You even put my date of birth."

I thought about quietly discussing the matter with the guy, but then it occurred to me- I'm 68 years old and my life has been filled with conversations I wish I had avoided. So I hit the button and ended the call.

After that, I checked back to see what I had written, and as I expected there was nothing in it that I could get in any trouble for. Though I put DOB, the only information I gave was the year he was born, which was certainly wasn't going to cause him any problems.

I never said he committed the crime, when I referred to it, I used the word allegedly. Otherwise, I quoted directly from the probable cause statement, which, in itself, is an allegation- and it is also a public record, meaning I can print the information from it.

I checked online court records and confirmed the case was no longer there.

In the past, I have had people contact me, usually by e-mail, when a case is dropped, and ask me to remove the post. I nearly always do. If there is a reason that I need to leave the post up, I try to add an editor's note, explaining the later developments.

In other words, this guy had no reason to threaten me.

There are a lot of reasons why cases are dropped. Sometimes, a judge finds in a preliminary hearing that the probable cause threshold has not been met, the prosecuting attorney might have a change of mind, a witness may refuse to testify, or the investigators may discover they have made a mistake and the man who was arrested was innocent.

Whatever happens has nothing whatsoever to do with my right to publish what I originally published. And it also means I have every right to leave it exactly as I wrote it. The Joplin Police Department arrested the man. The probable cause statement tells why he was arrested and every bit of information I printed came from public records. That all happened, even if the charges were subsequently dropped.

I could leave it on the blog, but that's not the way I operate.

I unpublished the post, but I retain a copy just in case this man is arrested on a similar allegation in the future. 

I hope I never need to use it.