Well, I don't know if I have mentioned this before but there are certain civil remedies that can be taken. First, when legal action is filed, at least in California, you can have a peace officer serve the summons. A officer at the door tends to make stalkers lose their belief of invincibility. In addition, restraining orders can be enforced by the person holding the order. It is a matter of filing a contempt motion and is a pain, but it is effective.
----- Original Message ---- From: Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, June 9, 2008 5:07:36 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article
Even if you know who it is, even if you know where they are, if they haven't crossed the line into clearly criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them may be difficult or impossible. You can try a restraining order in some cases, or suing them, but that's not always useful either.
----
Oh, it goes beyond that. Even if the behavior has clearly crossed the line into criminal conduct then getting law enforcement to stop them is difficult to impossible. In my lifetime I have stood in front of police officers, restraining order in hand, and pointed to the precise lines that the perp (who was standing ten feet away) was violating at that very moment before the officers' eyes, and the officers refused to take the perp into custody. That happened not once but repeatedly with different officers. And their chain of command supported them. I have witnessed police refuse to take a report for a direct death threat even when a restraining order was already in place. And after I did get police reports, the police misplaced physical evidence repeatedly. When I went to court with an armful of physical evidence, the prosecutor himself showed up at court having left the entire case file behind on his desk, and cut a sweetheart deal with the defense attorney while shutting me out. I asked to speak to the prosecutor repeatedly, but was denied the opportunity until after the judge had already ruled, at which point the prosecutor told me all my evidence was past history and might as well be thrown away.
I did get that fellow behind bars, though. And I did some things to make sure that prosecutor's office never handled another case that sloppily again (when it changes endorsements in the mayor's race they change their tune).
In short, I'm no noob and I'm no fool. These last few months several people have been telling me who Gavin de Becker is, as if I hadn't already read "The Gift of Fear" years before I joined Wikipedia. I don't entirely agree with Mr. de Becker. I see where he's coming from, but he and I have philosophical differences. I also think Wikipedia is different enough from the world of his usual clients that his approach requires modification.
-Durova