Is it legal to contact someone whose name you got from a police report?
<p>The reason I ask is this. My father was bicycling when he crossed in front of traffic and was struck by someone driving a vehicle, and unfortunately, he died shortly after. I won’t go through all the evidence, but I happen to know what was almost certainly the cause of my father crossing in front of traffic like this. He had a vision problem with the peripheral vision in his left eye.</p>
<p>So with that said, I keep thinking about the person who hit him and how that must have made them feel. I wasn’t present at the scene but an officer who was there told me that they were cooperative with the police and there was no evidence that they did anything wrong. But what I keep thinking about is that I know from talking to others who have accidentally killed someone how that scene keeps replaying in their head and I’m sure it bothers him a lot.</p>
<p>I want to call this person, tell them who I am, and let them know that I and the rest of the family aren’t angry at him, that it wasn’t his fault, and tell him the thing about my dad’s eye, in hopes that that information will help him recover from the shock.</p>
<p>Is it legally problematic to reach out to him, considering that I got his name from a police report? Or problematic for a different reason?</p>
<p>If it makes a difference, this is in Tennessee, USA.</p>

<p>The First Amendment protects your right to free speech. There is no exception for speech directed at people whose names the speaker finds in a police report.</p>

united-states traffic tennessee