There is a category included on incident types reported by the police department that is referred to as "annoying calls." That seemed rather ambiguous. Annoying calls in some households could apply to a mother-in-law, or to others, debt collectors legitimately trying to collect a debt.
Not so. Brian Griffin, Det. Sgt. of the Northborough Police Department, said that more than half of the incidents in 2012 that involved anything "annoying or unwanted" was in the form of a text message.
In 2012, incidents that fell under the category "annoying calls" totaled at 19, as compared with 16 in 2011 and 19 in 2010.
"Also, in all but four incidents, the reporting party or victim knew the person who was either calling them or text messaging," said Griffin. "Seven of these incidents involved a domestic related situation where there may have been a violation of a restraining order."
If a defendant has a "no contact" restraining order taken out on a person, and the plaintiff calls or texts, the plaintiff is in violation of the order and they are arrested.
"Texts that are sexual in nature that involve an image typically would be handled by a detective," said Griffin, "and would probably be classified under a different category—not 'annoying calls.'"
Only one "annoying call" involved a sales call.
"This has clearly changed over the years," said Griffin. "I remember when I first started 13 years ago, when annoying calls were in fact annoying calls."