AboutWilliam A Saunders Expertise I can answer general questions about the legal system, how the courts work, corrections and law enforcement in general. I cannot provide legal advice.
Experience The criminal justice system, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and community corrections/correctional education
Question Mystery writer again. Here's a sticky one, I think: Suppose someone has been sending threatening letters to a Forest Service office, objecting to something (legal) that's going on in the National Forest that they supervise. It turns out that the sender was a person who lives nearby in the county. Rather than arresting him, they just want to throw a scare into him. My scenario has a Forest Service person and a Sheriff's Deputy going out together to "have a little chat" with him. Is this plausible?
Answer Hi,
sorry for the delay. I had been sick, but I'm better now.
For a situation like this, it is very unlikely that the investigators would just try and scare the person who sent the threatening letter. They would probably arrest him, because they wouldn't want to take a chance that the threats were real. They would not go out just to have a chat. The other thing is, how threatening were the letters? Were the letters merely addressing dissatisfaction with policies of the Forest Service office? Or did the letters provide details about some threat, promising to cause harm of some kind? If the letters were just addressing frustration, then that's fine and the person would probably not be arrested. People do that all the time. But if the letters were aggressive in their threats, then that's another story.
