911 Calls: Do’s, Don’ts, and the Law
“If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all again and again.” Those words were spoken by Bernie Goetz on December 31, 1984, during an interview with local law enforcement in Concord, New Hampshire. Goetz is perhaps best known by the name the media gave him at that time: The Subway Vigilante. He’d shot four young men he felt threatened him while he rode the subway. During the course of this interview—during which Goetz had no legal counsel present—he delivered what might be one of the more infamously bad exchanges with police. This took place decades ago, before the days of cell phones and instant interactions; today, it could easily be the content of a dramatically bad 911 call. In fact, the contents of a call to 911 are absolutely going to be heard by law enforcement, probably multiple times. Your 911 call might not technically be a statement to the police, but it can be treated as an admission or evidence of your state of mind—mens rea—in court.