How to Report a Crime
You’ve seen a crime happen. Now you’re in a bind. Are you legally required to report the crime? Who should you report the crime to? How do you even go about reporting a crime? How long do you have to report the crime? It’s amazing how much stress simply being an innocent bystander can cause.
Are You Legally Required to Report a Crime?
The answer to whether you’re legally required to report a crime is both yes and no.
In most cases, the State of California is happy to let you decide whether you should report the crime. Failure to do so probably won’t get you into legal trouble but there are some exceptions.
The exceptions include:
- Rape
- Child Abuse
- Murder
In the case of severe crimes that the state feels you’re legally required to report, failure to do so will result in you being charged with aiding and abetting.
Who Do You Report a Crime To?
When you know about a crime and want to report it, you need to contact your local police station. You can do this in person or via a phone call. People at the police station will provide you with additional information that includes the exact officer you should speak to, what type of details they need to know, and if they’ll have follow-up questions.
In the case of extremely serious crimes, crimes that require immediate medical attention, or crimes that are in progress, you should call 911.
How to Report a Crime
The best way to report a crime is by staying calm, cool, and collected. While reporting the crime stick to just the details, and resist the urge to start sharing your opinions and thoughts about the situation. At this stage, plain facts are the only thing the police require.
Pay attention to the questions the person you’re speaking asks and answer them honestly. If you don’t know the answer, make that clear.
How Long Should You Wait to Report a Crime
The general rule of thumb is that you should report a crime as quickly as possible. Not only does this alert the authorities and allow them to take immediate and appropriate action, but it also allows you to share the details of the case while your memory is still sharp. Waiting even a few hours can drastically impact your ability to recall exactly what you saw and experienced.
Have you ever been in a position where you had to report a crime? How did you handle the situation?
What is Catfishing?
What we currently refer to as catfishing, which is pretending to be someone else for the specific purpose of deceiving another, isn’t a new concept. It has been happening since the beginning of time. The difference between now and all the historic cases of catfishing is that social media has made deceit and connecting with people easier than ever.
Using the term catfish to describe the act of assuming a fake identity in order to dupe another became commonplace shortly after a 2010 documentary called Catfish premiered. The documentary gave a detailed and fascinating account of a woman who was completely deceived by a young man with a Facebook account.
Catfishing could be considered a bit of a long con. The perpetrator puts a great deal of time and effort into setting up the scam. They must create a fake account, post fake photos, and come up with a good story. Most importantly they must know why they’re embarking on their catfishing escapade.
Every person has their own reason for setting up a catfishing scheme. Some people do it just because they want to see if they can have a good time. Stories like the old email con from the supposed Nigerian prince who needed money do it for financial gain. Sometimes it’s a desperate attempt to connect with someone and establish a romantic connection. There are even cases like the one involving Jonelle Potter who launched a catfishing campaign that hJonishing convinced her father and boyfriend to murder for her.
The good news is that most catfishing schemes don’t end in murder, though the victims frequently lose a great deal of money to the catfisher before the con runs its course. In 2021, 3,023 California victims revealed that not only had they become ensnared in a catfishing scam, but that they had given the person running the scam. It’s estimated that the 3,023 victims collectively lost $183,928,230. And that was just in California!
The laws surrounding catfishing are… murky.
Many states don’t have a law that specifically prohibits catfishing. What they do have are laws that deal with the outcome of catfishing, such as extortion and fraud. If convicted of either offense, the person who perpetrated the catfishing scheme will be a felon and likely spend some time in a state prison. It’s also highly likely that additional crimes such as identity theft (if you assume the identity of a real person for your catfishing scheme,) phishing, and electronic harassment.
3 Common Social Media Crimes
Most of us love social media sites. They provide us with an easy way to stay in touch with loved ones, the ability to let people know what we’re up to and to simply check in with someone.
What many of us don’t think about is how individuals with criminal intentions can use social media against us.
If you love your social media platforms, there are some common social media crimes you should know about. Once you’re aware of these crimes and cons, you can take steps to monitor your account and protect yourself.
Hacking
Hacking is a huge problem, particularly with Facebook. Every single day, there are stories about someone’s account either being hacked or someone creating a mirror account and using their newly gained access to gain access to another person’s computer files, contacts, and personal information.
In many cases, these hacking cases eventually turn into identity theft situations which is why it’s important to quickly change passwords and contact the social media platform’s administrators as soon as the hacking attempt is discovered.
Stalking and Bullying
Everything good has a downside. The praise, encouragement, and general good vibes you receive when you share the good news on social media sites are balanced by the stalking and bullying that is found all over social media. The bullying is bad. It can quickly eat at the victim’s self-confidence. There have even been cases of social media bullying leading to suicide.
Alongside the bullying is stalking. While this is mostly only discussed when someone is talking about a public profile, it can be a problem for anyone who uses social media sites. Not only can a stalker follow us virtually, but when we post personal information, including pictures of our homes/cars/vacation spots, we create a situation where a stalker could also start following us in real-time. This is why it’s so important to be very conscious about how much personal information you post on social media sites and to carefully go over every picture and make sure there isn’t anything a stalker could use to pinpoint your location.
Vacation Robberies
Vacation robberies have been around forever, the original Home Alone plot was based around a vacation robbery, but they used to require the thieves to pay attention to a specific neighborhood and learn the signs that someone was out of town. Today, thieves who participate in vacation robberies simply have to pay attention to social media and see who is talking about vacation while they are out of town.
The best way to avoid being a victim of a vacation robbery is to resist the urge to post vacation photos on your social media sites until you’re home. When posting, be very clear that you’re home and that your home isn’t ripe for a robbery.
What steps do you take to avoid common social media crimes?
The Most Common Crimes in California
There are some crimes that the California court system deals with more than others.
DUIs
It doesn’t seem to matter how often drivers are warned about the dangers of drinking and driving, people are still doing just that. Every single day, someone in California gets caught driving after they’ve had too much to drink.
This is a fairly simple crime to avoid. If you want to drink, either make sure you have a reliable designated driver, are prepared to call for a ride home, or give yourself plenty of time to sober up before you get behind the wheel. If none of these things are possible, either stay home and drink or stick to non-alcoholic beverages while you’re out on the town.
Drug Related Crimes
Like most states, there is a serious drug problem in California. While California is often praised for being progressive about both drug laws and drug treatments, there is no getting around the fact that drug crimes are still abundant in the state. The number of fatalities connected to drug use has been steadily climbing. In 2000 there were only 500 deaths in California were attributed to drug use. That number climbed to about 2,200 in 2019.
Drugs commonly linked to drug-related crimes in California include:
- Cocaine
- Opioids
- Meth
- Heroin
Theft
Many cases involving theft make their way through the California court system every single year. Many people don’t even realize how many different types of theft occur in the state during a year. When the average person hears about theft, they usually think about breaking and entering and shoplifting. The truth is that there are numerous different ways you can be charged with theft.
Different types of theft charges in California include:
- Breaking and Entering
- Fraud
- Car theft
- Embezzlement
- Shoplifting
- Robbery
- Petty theft
- Grand theft
Assault
It is rare for 24 hours to pass without at least one person in most of California’s cities getting charged with some type of assault. The circumstances surrounding the incident determine how serious the assault charges are. In some cases, the charge is a simple assault which is something that generally happens when a conversation gets heated and punches are thrown. Simple assault is typically a misdemeanor.
The opposite end of the scale is aggravated assault which generally involves the use of some type of weapon and someone getting seriously hurt.