Reporting a "body" to authorities

[memberofthewedding]

You are out in a remote place and you come across what appears to be a dead person. Do you:-

#1 call the police and await their arrival or leave full contact details

#2 call police later from phone box or burner phone. You are concerned that someone may be awaiting news of the dead person but dont want to get personally involved with police/courts/witness statements/media frenzy

#3 walk away and let someone else find it - for similar reasons to #2

I would probably choose #2 because I despise the media and certainly dont want to be involved with these gouls.

1 because once you’ve reported it to police they won’t disclose your details to media etc

eh? 1 of course. You don't normally see much in the media about the person who found the body other than "it was found by a dog walker"

Did you find a body OP?

With 2, you may still get traced. If there’s no obvious lines of enquiry from the scene then the police may look into the anonymous caller. There’s likely to be no media blowback but you’re right, they could compel you to give a statement and all that rigmarole

It depends on the circumstances for me. I’d probably go for #1 but wouldn’t want to hang around a corpse until the police arrive, so may wait elsewhere. You never know, the person might survive if they get medical assistance

I think I would move a safe distance away and alert someone else too, if possible, before I phoned the police/ambulance in case the 'killer' was still hanging around!

#1 , but I don't think I'd wait there with the 'body'. I'd probably run tbh because I'd be shitting myself, I've never seen a dead person.

Check to see if it is a dead body. If it is, call the police and wait for them.

#1. I wouldn't be worried about waiting near the body - although not so near as to contaminate possible forensic evidence if it turned out to be murder/manslaughter rather than natural causes - as I'm not particularly squeamish and I think in a slightly odd way it might be comfort to the dead person's family if they were told there was someone 'with' their relative.

There wouldn't be too much fuss TBH; give a statement and that would probably be it. It's vanishingly unlikely you'd be called as a witness in any court case, those sorts of non-contentious statements are almost always just accepted as evidence, and your details wouldn't be disclosed to the media.

Wtf, this is the weirdest thread I've read for a while.

1. Not least because 2 & 3 make it look like you are involved

1- because why would you do the other 2?

1 of course. The other 2 are hardly the decent thing to do “don’t want to get personally involved”, you’ve come across a dead body of course you are now involved whether you like it or not.

Are you hiding from the police or something, OP? Why would you not do #1 unless you had something to hide?

What a weird thread this is! #1 without question.

Have the people who are commenting this is a weird thread missed the fact it's posted on the 'Ethical Dilemmas' board?

what appears to be a dead person
Don't you call 999 and ask for ambulance? (and police)

Obviously 1, the others are weird/suspicious. I wouldn’t wait with the body though because I’d be creeped out, I’d give the what3words coordinates and be on my way.

Who - outside of Line of Duty - has a 'burner phone' to hand?!?

1-2
Id ring police on my own phone but i wouldnt wait til they arrived. They'd have my real number.

@BarbaraPapa

Who - outside of Line of Duty - has a 'burner phone' to hand?!?

Someone dodgy.are you dodgy OP?

1 because anything else looks like you are hiding something, its so easy to trace people with how much surveillance is around these days anyway. They don't give your information to the media, but need to know who you are to rule out your footprints, appearance on any local CCTV, to ask what or who else you may have seen in the area, to ask whether you checked for signs of life to account for anything you may have moved/touched on or near the body etc. Someone hiding for no good reason may hinder an investigation.

I once found someone lying in the road, with lots of blood running down the road. I thought he was dead.

What I did, was took his pulse, realised he was alive, ran into the nearest shop (didn't have a phone on me) and asked them to call an ambulance. Then I waited with him till they and the police came, gave police my details and left. If he'd have been dead, I'd have asked for them to call the police and waited for them to arrive.

In my experience there's no hemming and hawing, it's a panic based reaction of needing to get help. Unless I'd been in the process of doing something very illegal and obvious, I can't imagine the thought of 'not wanting to be involved' would ever cross my mind.

Cut off the head, shove a sharp stick through the heart and run.

Do none of you watch horror movies.

1, of course.

Can I add another situation -

What if you recognised the body and there was enough history to make #1 less of an option?