Very thoughtful post.
Off topic:
It reminds me of a young man I once knew (in my professional life.) One time he told me he’d like to go on a date with me after tying my husband to a tree so my husband could watch. Another time he said his favorite thing to do was to “set bums on fire.” One of my coworkers was so freaked out she called LE about him, just to alert them to his presence. Since he had committed no crime, they couldn’t do anything. There was a string of car breaks-ins and a random double homicide in the area (small town) shortly after all that and I kept thinking it could be him. But with nothing at all to point the crime to him, I couldn’t very well call him in. People can be a train wreck, massively creepy, and inappropriate, but you can’t call in a tip for someone being creepy.
Words are often precursors to action, but the real importance of threatening statements is the context, of which they are relayed, not the actual content of what they say.
For example, consider this letter.
"My dearest love, i loved holding your hand toady while we walked by the flowers, in time i cannot wait to hold you in my arms , and feel your nude body next to mine "
To most its caring , warm, and actually kind of romantic , but when you take into consideration that was an actual letter written from a 54 year old man to his neighbors 8 year old daughter, you can see plainly where the CONTEXT of whats said far outreaches the content .
In some cases, "Im going to chop you into pieces", isn't as indicative, as "Ill see you later " etc...
Some people like shock value, it doesn't mean that they are going to actually do anything along the lines of what comes out of their mouth, especially if there is absolutely no action to follow up those words .
If this individual kept contacting you after, or you began to run into him "coincidentally", then id be more concerned about his behavior .
If there was no record of attacks on the homeless, in which they were set on fire , then id take the words with a grain of salt .
Speaking from LE perspective, you have to understand what we get calls on every day, someone acting creepy has to be processed as fast as possible because (especially in major metropolitan areas) the next thing is going to be serious.
We catch a lot of flack because in the postscript of some atrocity the question always arises. "why didnt we act earlier", to that you find out often we did , but because of the limitations of the system, our hands were tied .
The real key to preventing tragedies, is getting eyes on early, and not just police, were just part of it , but families, social workers, therapists, those in corrections, those in the psychiatric community, all have to be aware .
But it starts in and around the home
