Harassment and Stalking:
What Is It and What Can I Do To Protect Myself?

What is Harassment?

Harassment is a crime in which a person seeks to harass, annoy, or alarm another person with repeated contact or telephone calls, physical contact, obscene language, or gestures.

Harassment by Stalking:

  • A person commits harassment by stalking when they directly or indirectly through another person make a credible threat; and in conjunction with that threat commit any of the following activities:

  • Intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another person, including physical contact of any kind (striking, shoving, kicking, or otherwise touching another person or subjecting them to physical contact).

  • Obscene language or gestures, an obscene comment or gesture directed toward a person in a public place.

  • Telephone calls, anonymous or otherwise, in a manner intended to harass, threat bodily injury, or harm to property.

  • Repeated contacts.  The perpetrator contacts a person more than once during inconvenient hours and interferes with a person's privacy or use of home or property.

  • Repeated telephone calls.  The perpetrator makes more than one telephone call with no purpose.

  • The perpetrator follows a person or a member of that person's immediate family in or around a public place.

  • The perpetrator causes the victim, the victim's immediate family, or someone with whom the victim is involved in a relationship serious emotional distress through following, unwanted communication or contact, or surveillance.  The victim need not receive professional treatment to show serious emotional distress.

Definitions:

Credible Threat:  A threat or physical action that would cause a reasonable person to be in fear of the person's life or safety or the safety of his or her immediate family.

Immediate Family:  Includes a person's spouse, children, parents, grandparents, and siblings.

Stalker Categories:

  • Domestic Violence Stalkers -- Function on sustained rage, vengeance, and feelings of impotence.  They are obsessed with control and power and need to punish the victim for not adhering to their control.  These are potentially the most lethal of all stalkers.

  • Erotomania Stalkers -- Function on pathologically exaggerated erotic fantasies.  They indulge in grandiose sexual fantasies involving themselves and their intended victim(s).

  • "High Profile" Stalkers -- Seek acknowledgment and acceptance from the victim and often fit the Erotomania profile.

  • Stranger-To-Stranger Stalkers -- Are not always complete "strangers" to the victim.  Clerks, neighbors, teachers, classmates, a regular customer, frequents the same church, restaurants, etc.  Often fits the Erotomania profile.

Threat Assessment:

Stalking can be a cycle of events or phases (tension building, violence, and hearts and flowers), which escalates in frequency and severity and may continue for years.

Tension Building Phase:

  • Phone calls

  • Unsolicited letters and/or gifts

  • Minor acts of vandalism

  • Psychological terrorism

    •

  • Threats

  • Watching or following the victim

  • Increased attempts to control the victim

Explosive or Acutely Violent Phase:

  • Assault

  • Burglary

  • Violence against the victim's family

    •

  • Kidnapping

  • Acute acts of vandalism

  • Murder-suicide (final act of control)

Hearts and Flower Phase:

The perpetrator may temporarily stop the stalking in an attempt to make the victim complacent about safety.  This is a common strategy used by stalkers so it is important that the victim continue to use personal safety.

The Cycle is Repeated, Escalating in Frequency and Severity

  • Can continue for years.

  • Perpetrator may escalate to murder/suicide after the cycle has been repeated several times, and it is apparent to the stalker that all of their attempts at coercion have failed.

  • Perpetrator sometimes abandons their current victim and redirects their fixation to new victim(s) who is not yet alert to their behavior.

What You Can Do:

  • Document everything.

  • Report every incident to the Police.

  • Keep a log of all contacts with the stalker.  Be sure to list dates, times, and locations of each incident.

  • Photograph damage to property or injuries.

  • Keep answering machine tapes of any messages left by the stalker(s).

  • Trace phone calls.  After hanging up from the call, pick up the phone and dial *57 (or 1157 on a rotary phone).  The telephone number of the line used by that caller can be forwarded to a phone company security center.

  • Keep letters and gifts from the stalker.  The more specific information you can provide, the easier it will be to establish the stalking pattern.

  • Go to court and get a restraining order - Carry it with you at all times.

Personal Security:

  • Change locks and install dead bolts

  • Install plenty of outdoor lighting

  • Screen phone calls with an answering machine

  • Do not give personal information over the phone without confirmation that the person you are speaking to is who you think they are

  • Keep telephone numbers and locations of police and other safe places handy

  • Keep money, a spare set of keys, and a packed suitcase available for quick departure

  • Inform your friends and neighbors about the situation.  Give them pictures so they can identify the stalker and warn you if they see him or her.  Consider getting a cellular phone, pepper spray, and a personal alarm - Carry these items with you at all times.

Guard Personal Information

  • Use a post office box for mail delivery (and use the post office box address as your physical address)

  • Obtain an unpublished phone number

  • Contact the appropriate agency to guard your personal information from public records, including driver's license, vehicle registration, voter registration, and property records

  • Request credit bureaus to guard your address and social security information

  • Inquire about placing a password on all personal financial records, including utilities, bank accounts, credit cards, and club memberships

If you have a restraining order, remember to keep a copy of it with you at all times.
You must be able to show it to a police officer in order for it to be enforced.

What NOT To Do:

  • DO NOT throw anything in the trash that has your name, address, and/or telephone number on it

  • DO NOT meet with the stalker to "talk things out"

  • DO NOT assume that the stalker will leave you alone if asked

  • DO NOT return letters or gifts

  • DO NOT assist a stalker if they have a crisis.  Stalkers are known to develop elaborate schemes to gain attention or to try to make you feel guilty.

For More Information:

If you need law enforcement assistance, call 303-438-6400.  If you need information regarding restraining orders, call the Broomfield Police Department's Victim Services Unit at 303-438-6429.

Boulder County Safehouse 303-444-2424
Boulder County Safehouse Tri-City 303-673-9000
Women In Crisis 303-420-6752
Project Safeguard 303-863-7233
Alternatives to Family Violence 303-289-4441
Alternatives (North Office) 303-657-0064