DISPATCH: "Jacksonville 911. What is your emergency?"
MORROW: "I am driving home from a family party and a car that I don’t know has been following me since before the Town Center and I was at Ponte Vedra Beach and they switched lanes every single time I switched lanes on the highway and now I am near my house and they are still following me."
That's the 911 call Halle Morrow made during a frightening experience on the road. The moment she realized she was being followed by a stranger.
She and her sister, Caroline, were on their way home from the beaches after celebrating their cousin’s birthday on May 24th. It was dark out, around 10pm, they were on JTB near the Kernan Blvd exit when Halle noticed the car behind her was riding close to her bumper. Even cutting off a car that got in between.
"They managed to swerve around the car between us and ride even closer to me," describes Halle Morrow.
She says it followed her off JTB and toward her neighborhood, then got closer.
"As soon as I got onto a street that wasn’t as well lit as a normal street, they turned their brights on so I could barely see," tells Halle.
That's when she decided to call 911.
"I did a bunch of different twists and turns around my neighborhood and they followed me every single way, they have their brights on – I don’t know who it is," Halle tells the 911 Jacksonville dispatcher.
Halle didn’t know where the nearest police station was, so the dispatcher told her to head for a well lit parking lot and keep driving until an officer arrived.
Her sister called their mother, Jill Morrow.
"My first thought was, I have to get to my girls," tells their mother.
The girls headed for the Winn Dixie parking lot at University and San Jose. Jill was ready to meet them there too and says when she saw her daughters pull in with a car following closely behind, she cut in between.
"I turned in and he slammed on the brakes or else he would have hit me. So I made him stop," explains Jill.
Jill says she could see a man and a woman in the car. She says the man got out and came over to her vehicle.
"He slammed the door and came over and got in my window, didn’t hit my window or anything, but yelling 'what are your doing', 'why did you cut me off', 'what’s wrong with you?' I kept saying ‘ oh I’m sorry, did I cut you off?'," tells Jill.
She says he got back into his car and left. They got the car tag number and car model and gave that information to police. But the Morrows still don’t know what the two people wanted.
"So I have no idea except he followed her for quite a bit of time and was obviously up to no good," says Jill.
So what do you do if you think you’re being followed?
First, when you feel unsafe – call 911, tell police the situation.
Second, do not drive to your home. Start heading toward the nearest police station.
If you are in an unfamiliar town or you don’t know where the nearest police station or substation is - if you have an iPhone, use Siri. Say “Hey Siri...take me to the nearest police station.” That should pop up directions to the nearest location. You can also ask Siri to call the station so you can let police know you are on the way.