I know I’m not supposed to ask for legal advice here so I’ll try to, as Trebek would say, keep it in the form of a question. A female friend of mine recently had this happen to her:
She was denied access to her health-club/gym because they said she owed back fees. Long story short, she didn’t. They give her a phone number to call, so she goes home and calls the company and the person she speaks to (who was just a young, female customer service rep) just talked in circles giving her no reasonable explanation for anything. So my friend, being very frustrated by all this, said to the girl something to the effect of, “…well I guess I’ll just jump off a bridge then!” and hangs up.
Now the fun part. A few minutes later my friend gets a call from the 911 operator telling her that she has a report of a suicidal person at this number. My friend explains exactly what happened and what she said and that it was just a result of her frustration with bad customer service. The 911 operator keeps her on the phone asking her to repeat things until, a few more minutes later, the police arrive at my friends door! Again long story short, the police have no interest in hearing my friends explanation and simply tell her, “Come willingly or we’ll restrain & force you”. She’s put in the back of a police cruiser in front of her neighbors and taken to a local hospital, locked in an exam cubicle for almost an hour, told to strip naked and put on a gown (in private), again made to wait, then interviewed at length by a shrink who, eventually, deems her fit to be released immediately (he told her that he could have had her held for 72 hours if he didn’t believe her responses). As a final insult one of the flunky hospital rent-a-cop security guards makes a slyly sexually suggestive comment to her as she leaves (my female friend is attractive).
Now to me the issues here are this:
[ul][li]How is it that a complete stranger can report to the authorities that someone’s suicidal with such little and obviously tenuous evidence?[/li][li]Why didn’t the officers have to tell my friend the name of the person claiming she was suicidal?[/li][li]Why did the 911 dispatcher accept the claim with such flimsy evidence?[/li][li]Isn’t it an obvious & blatant conflict of interest that the person making the 911 call was a customer service rep dealing with a disgruntled customer? And for a health-club? (i.e. not a bank or insurance company?)[/li][/ul]
To me this seems like a very obvious case of harassment. That the rep was not at all concerned about my friend’s well being but rather was annoyed at her dismissive attitude towards her help and she reported her obvious joke to 911 just to get back at her. So a few more things:
[ul][li]Can she get a copy of the police report with the name of the complainant?[/li][li]Can she get a copy of the recorded 911 call?[/li][li]Should she just immediately seek counsel on all this?[/li][/ul]Any and all comments, opinions and past experiences are welcome…