Death Threats

[Double J]

Technically, this wasn't a death threat, but I missed a volleyball game due to my brother getting in an accident at work. He almost died. Word traveled around the office and people called in and complained about the game not getting covered. I go to the same school to cover a game a week later and had someone screaming "Hey jerk, how's your brother" in a loud, sarcastic voice as I walked past the stands. I turned around and a bunch of parents sat there smirking.

I wish you had smiled sadly, walked over and put your hand on the guy's shoulder, and said, 'Thank you so much for asking....Mom's doing a little better now that the funeral is behind us....we finally found a good orphanage for his kids, what with their mother still in the coma...it means so much to know so many people really care. Hey, I better get to work, God bless!'

I bow to the wit that is 21.

That is a great response but my guess is it would have been completely lost on its brain-damaged targets.

I know of a retired hockey player who once had a face-to-face dispute with a newspaper columnist over the columnist's offensively pompous behaviour at some hockey event. It culminated when the columnist was directly told that he was going to suffer, at the very least, serious bodily damage. The scribe tried to bluff the hockey guy by telling him he shouldn't be making threats like that. The guy replied, again, very directly, that he didn't make threats, he made promises. The writer finally realized in the nick of time that the hockey guy, a) was not kidding about his intentions, and b) was entirely capable of carrying them out without breaking too much of a sweat.

 

[Idaho]

Death threats or similar more heinous retaliations are considered de rigeur my patient clientele. My home address and phone number remain unlisted and the hospital knows not to release the information under penalty of death. Fortunately cell phones allow communication without revealing location.

I wasn't aware of this. So doctors get a lot of heat from unhappy relatives and such?

Is it more commone in the ER or surgery practices?

It's only happened like twice in 20 years on ER.

My wife has received numerous vile, threatening phone calls from patients, family or patients and friends of patients. Usually they are a reaction from not being able to cure a morbidly obese patient of her aches and pains with a magic pill -- or for not giving copeous amounts of magic pills to addicts.

We have had an unlisted number for years, too. We made that decision after only two 2 a.m. calls from a drunken, grieving woman who claimed my wife killed her 97-year-old cancer-striken grandmother.

 

[Oz]

No death threats here. A lot of parents who believe that I and/or my paper cost their son or daughter a college scholarship by not writing about them enough or handing them postseason honors and the like. That usually came with a threat to cancel their subscription. But no death threats.

 

[JayFarrar]

This thread pops up from time to time and I've told the lengthy version of the Klan leader wanting to kill me story before.
The short version. Klan guy said he was going to kill me, I filed a police report, and then, obviously, I didn't die.
SportsDude you're more restrained than me. I would have charged the stands and the brawl would have been on.
The only thing similar is whenn my brother got married and I skipped out on some coverage to go. His soon to be father-in-law was being deployed to Iraq, so the date was very flexible and to go we all had to drop what we were doing.
So the next week a coach I was pretty close to starts giving me some business for missing the "big game" and I told him my brother got married and that was more important to me than his stupid game. Then I told the Iraq story and he apologized since he didn't know.

 

[Crimson Tide]

I'm lucky enough that the apathy runs high in my neck of the woods.

 

[AgatePage]

Had a parent (former NFL player) of a private-school high school athlete threatened me some bodily harm -- I will kick your ass the next time I see you out at my kid's game, blah, blah, blah. And it wouldn't have surprised me in the least; he was a little off his rocker.

Told my boss and ME, then called the school AD and said we would not cover any of their games as long as he was showing up and threatening reporters.

The AD told the parent he was being nuts and said he wasn't allowed at any games for awhile. he responded by pulling his kid out of school the next day. Was completely confused by that reaction, but no one ever called the guy smart.

 

[dwychwder]

In college, I wrote a column saying some not-so-nice things about the football team. Actually, I remember the best line: "Collectively, the players have the character of a dirty washcloth." whenever I showed up for games and press conferences, the captains would stand to the side of the room and just point at me and mouth things I couldn't understand. At the end of the school year, I found myself at a party being thrown by what apparently was a mutual friend. About 5-8 football guys cornered me in the kitchen and threatened to beat the shirt out of me. A friend of mine, standing to the side, said simply: "Hey, didn't you guys go 2-9?" After that, they backed off and let me reason with them about how shirtty they actually were. The next season a new coach came in and they went 8-3, but the players never fully forgave me for calling them out.

Side note: Word on the street was that the coach (who had been fired effective at the end of the season) told his team in practice that, before he left the school, one of his goals was to "tell (my name) to kiss my ass!"

Not a death threat, but still highly amusing.

 

[Bob Slydell]

I had one.

We were doing a story on Coach X committing [said felony]. We had everything. Victim's family, documents, couple of witnesses, comments from local municipalities and bureaucracies. We needed Coach X's comment. He knew it was coming.

We call him, and he goes forking ape shirt. I really didn't care. I expected it. And, it really didn't matter what he had to say. We just had to give him an opportunity.

Later that afternoon, we get a document from a previous Freedom of Info Act we submitted. It wasn't terribly important. But, it did give some chronology to the story. So, I pull the story from the budget and from the paper.

So, we spend the next two days reworking the story to give it proper chronology. He calls me several times. He yells at me. Screams at me. Tells me he's going to "own [my f'ing] house." I expected it. Big deal. Go for it, Dude. Good luck.

The last one, the day before it was to appear in the paper, was a real one. You would recognize it if it happened to you. There was pure, unadulterated desperation in his voice. The kind when you grit your teeth. Anger. Pure anger. The Dirtbag was serious.

Me: "We're running it."
Dirtbag: "You're mother [f'ing] dead. And I know where your family goes to church."
(My wife and I had one daughter at the time.)
Me: "You just made the second biggest mistake of your life."
Dirtbag: "What are you going to do about it?"
Me: "Goodbye."

Walked over to the Managing Editor's office. He called the Editor. We all called the FBI.

He lost everything. The Dirtbag pleads to a lesser charge on the felony. But, he pleads no contest to "disseminating death threat(s) over phone lines."

(Nothing about the death threats appeared in the paper. Not until Metro covered the conclusion and complete sentencing was revealed.)

That was nine years ago. He gets out in June, I'm told.
He would have been out a long time ago had he not made that phone call. Dirtbag.

Awesome. Totally awesome.

Yeah, but nice knowing ya once he gets out!

 

[Bob Slydell]

This could have caused me a major beating if people had found out who I was, but when i was editor of the school paper, I did a story abot some guys who got busted transporting drugs throught he mail. They got busted at the campus post office by the FBI.

So I do the story, and it comes out on Wednesday. Bylined across the top of the front story. Well, right after the paper cmes out I'm down in the gym gettng rady to play baketball and everyones reading the paper, including three of the guys who were arrested and had just gotten out on bail (they were so concerened, they had to go to the gym and play ball).

Well, two of the guys were on my team and i was about to crap little green apples. Especially when some guy hollers at me while we're playing, but nothing ever happened. Pretty scary for a moment though.

 

[moonlight]

Back in '01, when Earnhardt Jr. won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona about five months after his dad had died there, I wrote a column saying that NASCAR blew an opportunity to gain fans because Junior and the other drivers talked on TV at length about their sponsors rather than the emotional win.

Couple days later I get a letter typed in all caps on an old-school typewriter. Guy says he's gonna beat my ass with a ball bat like the liberal pussy that I am. He even signs its and puts his return address on it. I laughed at it and threw it a way a few days later. I had no idea it was a threat. I wish I would have taken it to the police.

I never heard from the guy again. But I did learn a lesson. Never, EVER, criticize Dale Earnhardt Jr.

 

[Montezuma's Revenge]

In college, I wrote a column saying some not-so-nice things about the football team. Actually, I remember the best line: "Collectively, the players have the character of a dirty washcloth."

And you're proud of that line? Dude, that blows.

You should have been beaten up for shirtty writing.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Do not, under any circumstances, flame a populace known to go around with guns. Like hunters, for instance. That's all I'm saying ...