Kanagawa woman arrested for calling police 1,200 times in 8 days, saying “Merry Christmas, Die!”

I think she’s confusing Christmas with Easter.

Harassing phone calls are a problem around the world, but over the years, Japan has seen some particularly staggering cases of them. Repeated calls totaling in the thousands have occurred in time frames that make you wonder when the offenders find time to eat and sleep.

Even more peculiar is that a usual target of these relentless callers are the police themselves. The latest such incident led to the arrest of a 55-year-old woman in Kanagawa Prefecture on suspicion of obstructing business.

According to the police, the woman called roughly 1,200 times over an eight-day span from 20 to 27 December. Each call was reportedly full of abusive shouts to the effect of “Why are you even here?” and “Merry Christmas, die!” It should be noted that in Japanese, shouting “die” at someone tends to have more of the “f*#$ you” nuance than an actual threat of fatal violence.

▼ It’s always good to keep the holidays in your heart no matter what you do.

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Upon her arrest, the woman was unsurprisingly uncooperative, simply telling police that she didn’t remember anything. On the contrary, readers of the news will remember what she said for a long time to come, according to online comments.

“Merry Christmas, die! Ha! I love it.”
“I’m totally going to use that on Twitter.”
“Perfect choice of words.”
“It’s both cheerful and rude.”
“She should have stopped at 1,100 times.”
“She sounds like a real tsundere.”
“If only she could use that power for good.”
“Why does it take the police so long to arrest someone after getting 1,200 calls in eight days?”

There’s no one clear answer to that last question, but according to Very Best Law Firm, which wrote extensively about the ins and outs of nuisance calls on their website, it seems mostly a matter of motivation. Once the police make an arrest, they have 23 days to build a case to submit to the public prosecutor. In that time, they have to establish that the woman significantly obstructed their business and acted maliciously rather than being affected by mental instability. And even if they do that, prosecutors are said to defer cases about 57 percent of the time if the suspect shows remorse or pays compensation, rendering the entire investigation somewhat meaningless.

So, on the first day of 150 calls, the police have to ask themselves if it’s really worth following up on, especially since they themselves are the victim rather than a private citizen. It might save a lot of time to just let her get it out of her system and if she doesn’t, the more days she calls the stronger their obstruction of business case becomes, making the investigation more worthwhile anyway.

▼ In the meantime, the police usually have more pressing matters to attend to, like whatever they’re doing here.

However, if these types of abusive call blitzes become more prominent – which they appear to be – the police and prosecutors might take more aggressive tactics to deal with it in the future. So remember to take your frustrations out in less intrusive ways like voodoo or smelling a cat.

Source: Yomiuri Online, Otaku.com, Very Best
Featured image: Pakutaso
Insert image: Pakutaso
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