Let's talk stalkingFollow

"She knew he would kill her someday."

Three incidents of domestic violence/attempted kidnapping on record; multiple threats against her life; failure to report to a court-mandated program. Yet he never served a day in prison, and was only jailed long enough to post bond and be released OR.

What gives?

Ugh.

You really do have to drag a dead body behind your car to get arrested here.

And even then you get cited for littering.

The legal system's figurative head is way up it's ***.

A guy I work with rents a house and had a female roommate. Things were cool until the landlord got in touch, wondering why rent hadn't been paid. Guy mentions that it was the roomie's turn to pay this month, they do a quick check and find no rent has been paid.

So Guy talks to his roommate and she apologizes, things are weird, she lost track of time, she'll pay it tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and goes. A week later Guy notices a weird debt on his checking account for the full rent typically paid on the house. He checks in with the landlord to find that one of his checks had been used to pay, and that his signature had been forged.

Guy goes and files charges relating to fraud. Also has the landlord evict his roommate.

Roommate leaves that weekend and promptly disappears.

The landlord has a court date set as he has a few felony charges relating to fraud and theft that must be dealt with. Court date comes and goes; the roommate skips out on it and nobody knows where she is. A friend of hers says he got a call from her, and she said she was in El Paso, TX.

Police get in touch Wednesday following this court date, as apparently Guy's roommate had stolen some things from work. She worked at Ft Detrick, MD - happy little army base where a lot of our active bioweapons work is done. (uh oh.) Guy proceeds to inventory his house and realizes that he's had a few things stolen from him as well.

He goes back to court today to file some additional charges with the magistrate. While he's there, he asks the magistrate what happens if his former roommate skips out on their court date (seeing as how she skipped the previous one).

The magistrate told him that they could issue a bench warrant, but that the prosecuting attorney could also simply drop the charges entirely.


Granted, this is for a non-violent crime. Granted, the impact to other people has pretty much been nullified by corrective action on the part of Guy and his landlord. That said, I find it ludicrous that any prosecuting attorney would drop multiple felony charges; a bench warrant should absolutely be issued on the off-chance that this roommate gets picked up for some other violation in the future. Justice can be delayed, but justice should not be ignored.

'Broken' doesn't begin to describe the system.

What I would like to know is how on earth she pissed him off that bad...I mean that big of a gudge is just odd.

Really not odd at all. Many men and women do not learn how relationships are supposed to work in childhood. He felt that he owned her, similar to an appliance. He was unable to fathom how his "woman" could reject him. If every time you tried to turn on your TV it refused and instead kept turning around to face the neighbors house wouldn't you eventually get upset and smash it? If you can't watch it then no one can, right?

Domestic abuse happens all over this country every day. It's like a child throwing a tantrum and smashing his toys. Unfortunatly, many of these men never learn and move from one woman appliance to the next. Many of these women don't feel they have a way out of the relationship, they feel helpless and alone so they take it day after day.

This unfortunatly leads to lax law enforcement, cops are reluctant to get involved only to find that they are back at it 3 days later after he explains to his "woman" how much he has changed.

This culture of domestic violence is something many people have been working to change for many years. As with most any cause public awareness is the biggest hurdle.

Nope.

Ok, new to this part of the message board... saw this and it is frightening on many levels, not just the fact that I already worry enough about my daughter - but have seen how lightly they have treated stalkers in the past (not sure if they have changed any of the laws in the past few years).

One of my best friends was stalked by her ex-fiance after she called it off, I remember her telling me the last thing he told her was "It isnt over until I say it is over." - the ownership thing I suppose. I was scared for her then - and hopefully - if this is how easily they get off, he will stay away from her (it happened several years ago, and I felt helpless as she would talk to me on the phone just because).

All she was told at the time is they couldnt do anything unless he did something.. and simply stalking/following did not fall under him doing something (apparently it had to be a physical attack?)

She mentioned new stalking laws, but this is in Texas - but, it seems even with new laws and policies they still find a way to manipulate the system.

San Francisco is notorious for these kinds of cases. But remember a few years ago how the city and surrounding area just converged on the case of a man throwing a small dog into oncoming traffic? But it seems like no one blinked an eye with this.

It kinda makes me sick when I see how restrictive such states as New York and California are on carrying weapons. You can't even order Kusari type weapons in the State of California.

It makes you wonder.. I mean, if the criminal justice system can't and won't take care of the problems with stalking and domestic abuse, then why do the states restric peoples right to bear arms? If only that lady had a pistol with her.. I mean, at least she could have had a fighting chance, but she's dead now so we'll never know.

I paid for my girl to get her concealed handgun license. There's just too much sick shi[/u]t in this world that happens to people who aren't prepared for danger. It's sad, but its also undeniably true.

I was wondering the same thing. I know that 3 felonies alone won't do it but, three violent felonies will. At least this is what I thought. Correct me if I am wrong but, a felony domestic violence would involve some sort of a violent act.

No one said that, Mr./Ms. Jumpy McConclusion.

Edited, Tue Oct 25 18:00:07 2005 by pickleprince

Drug possession. Prostitution. Gambling. Things like that.