Abusive Phone Calls: How Much is Too Much?

According to news reports out of Japan, a 67-year old man made 2060 calls to his local police headquarters over a period of 9 days, solely for the purpose of hurling abuses, before he was finally arrested last week. 

To quote from one report:

Police in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, have arrested a 67-year-old man on suspicion of fraudulent obstruction of business by making nuisance calls to the prefectural police headquarters.

Police said, Yoshio Shimada, who was arrested on Monday, has admitted to the allegation, Kyodo News reported. Police said Shimada used his cell phone to make 2,060 nuisance calls to Saitama prefectural police headquarters from 11:15 a.m. on Sept 30 to 8:30 a.m. on Oct 8.

He verbally abused officers with comments such as “you are taxpayer thieves,” “you’re fired,” and “you’re big old idiots.” The total time spent on the phone calls is said to have exceeded 27 hours.

While it isn’t clear what took the police well over a month to make the arrest or if there were any challenges in tracking the calls, the report offers this rather intriguing bit of information:

According to police, Shimada made nuisance calls to the prefectural police headquarters several years ago, which made him a leading suspect this time. Police arrested him after checking his cell phone.