If you are verbally threatened, get yourself away from the person first, write down exactly what was said as soon as you are safe, and then decide whether to call the police, seek a protective order, or pursue a civil claim. Those three steps — safety, documentation, legal action — are the order that protects both your person and your options.
Get Away From the Person
Create distance. Don’t argue, don’t try to win the exchange, and don’t dare the person to follow through. Escalation is how verbal threats turn physical, and nothing you could say in that moment is worth the risk.
Move toward other people. A store, a restaurant, a neighbor’s house, anywhere with witnesses. Crowded spaces discourage aggression in ways that reasoning will not. Once you are somewhere safe, call someone you trust and walk them through what happened while it’s fresh in your mind.
If you are cornered and cannot leave, keep your voice calm and your statements short. Acknowledge the person’s emotion rather than debating their words. A flat, uninterested tone can drain the energy out of a confrontation. But if the person makes a direct threat of harm, leave and report it. De-escalation is not a substitute for getting out.
Write Down What Happened
The same day, write down the date, time, and location, the exact words the person used, their tone, their body language, and whether they had a weapon or made any physical gestures. Details you are sure you’ll remember tomorrow blur by next week.
If the threat came through a text, email, voicemail, or social media post, screenshot everything. Make sure the sender’s name or number and the timestamp are visible. Save voicemails rather than deleting them. If the platform lets you download message data, do that too — posts and messages can be deleted by the other person at any time.
If anyone else saw or heard it, get their name and phone number. Witness accounts carry weight when you file a police report or petition for a protective order. If the person threatens you again or shows up at your workplace or contacts your family, add each incident to a running log.
Can You Legally Record the Threat
Your instinct may be to hit record. Under federal law, you can record a conversation you are part of without telling the other person.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511 – Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications But roughly a dozen states require every person in the conversation to consent before anyone records, and secretly recording someone in those states can itself be a criminal offense, even if the other person is the one threatening you. Check your state’s rule before you record. When in doubt, leave your phone in your pocket and write everything down the moment the encounter ends.
When a Verbal Threat Is a Crime
Not every angry outburst is illegal. The First Amendment protects a lot of speech that is rude, offensive, or frightening. What it does not protect are “true threats” — statements where the speaker communicates a serious intent to commit unlawful violence against a specific person or group.2Legal Information Institute. Virginia v Black
Context does most of the work. “You’ll regret this” after an argument is vague and unlikely to be prosecuted. “I’m going to come to your house tonight and hurt you,” said while staring you down, is specific, directed, and carries very different legal weight. Courts look at how specific the threat was, the relationship between the people involved, whether the speaker appeared able to carry it out, and whether a reasonable person in your position would feel genuinely afraid.
In 2023, the Supreme Court held that prosecutors must also show the speaker at least recklessly disregarded the risk that their words would be taken as a threat of violence — that the person knew others could read the statement as threatening and said it anyway.3Supreme Court of the United States. Counterman v Colorado The speaker does not have to actually intend to follow through.
Depending on the jurisdiction and the severity, a true threat can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony. Penalties range from fines and short jail terms to years in prison for threats involving weapons or targeted at specific protected categories of people.
Threats by Text, Phone, or Online
Threats do not have to be face-to-face to be criminal. Federal law makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to transmit a threat to injure another person through interstate communications.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 875 – Interstate Communications That covers texts, emails, social media posts, and phone calls, which in practice means almost all digital communication.
If the threats form a pattern rather than a single incident, federal cyberstalking law may also apply. Using electronic communications to harass, intimidate, or place someone in reasonable fear of serious bodily injury is its own federal crime.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261A – Stalking The cumulative pattern strengthens both a criminal case and a protective order petition.
If the platform lets you report threatening messages, file that report. It creates an independent record with the platform even if the sender deletes the content later.
Filing a Police Report
If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For threats that are serious but not imminent, use your local police department’s non-emergency line. Bring your documentation: the written account, screenshots, witness names and numbers, and any recording you legally made.
An officer will take a formal statement and open an official record. Even if police do not arrest the person right away, the report matters. It establishes a documented history that prosecutors, judges, and other officers can reference later, and each additional incident you report builds a pattern that makes intervention more likely if the behavior continues.
Getting a Protective Order
A protective order is a court order barring the person from contacting you, coming near your home or workplace, or threatening you further. You do not need to wait for criminal charges, and you can pursue a protective order and a criminal case at the same time.
File a petition at your local courthouse. You will describe the threats, submit your evidence, and explain why you fear for your safety. A judge can review your petition the same day and issue a temporary order without the other person present. Temporary orders are legally binding and enforceable immediately, but they are short-lived, typically lasting only until a full hearing can be held, which most jurisdictions schedule within 10 to 20 days.
At the full hearing, both of you can present evidence and testimony. If the judge finds the threat credible and your fear reasonable, a longer-term order can issue, often lasting one to two years. Violating a protective order is a criminal offense in every state and can result in arrest, fines, and jail time.
One useful detail: a protective order issued in one state is enforceable in every other state under federal law.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2265 – Full Faith and Credit Given to Protection Orders You do not need to re-register it when you travel or move, but keep a copy on you so officers can act on it quickly.
Fees vary widely. Many jurisdictions waive them entirely for domestic violence or stalking petitions. Legal aid organizations in most areas represent people in protective order hearings at no cost.
Suing the Person Who Threatened You
Beyond criminal charges and protective orders, you may be able to sue. Two civil claims commonly fit verbal-threat situations.
The first is civil assault. Legal assault does not require anyone to touch you. It requires an intentional act that causes you to reasonably believe harmful physical contact is about to happen. A specific, credible threat paired with menacing body language can meet that standard even if the person never made contact.
The second is intentional infliction of emotional distress. This claim applies when conduct is so extreme and outrageous that it causes severe emotional harm. A single insult will not qualify. Sustained, targeted threats designed to terrorize you can. You would need to show the behavior went beyond what a civilized society should tolerate and that you suffered real emotional damage.
A civil lawsuit lets you seek money damages for therapy costs, lost income, and the emotional toll itself. The bar is higher than for a protective order, and you will usually need an attorney, but when threatening behavior has caused documented harm to your life, a civil claim opens a door that criminal prosecution alone does not.
If the Threat Happened at Work
When threats happen on the job, your employer has legal obligations. Under the OSHA General Duty Clause, every employer must provide a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious physical harm.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 654 – Duties of Employers and Employees Verbal threats of violence are exactly the kind of hazard the law covers.
If your employer knows about threats in the workplace and does nothing, they may be violating federal safety law.8Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Workplace Violence – Enforcement Report the threat to your supervisor, HR, or whoever handles safety concerns, and do it in writing so there is a record. The employer should then act — separating you from the person, adjusting schedules or locations, increasing security, or bringing in law enforcement.
This applies whether the threat came from a coworker, a supervisor, a customer, or anyone else you encountered because of your job. If your employer dismisses the complaint or retaliates against you for raising it, that is a separate problem with its own legal remedies, and you should document the response the same way you documented the original threat.