Street roots., August 11, 2017, Page 7, Image 7

Street Roots • August 11-17, 2017
Page 7
N ew s
STA LKIN G, from page 5
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protective order.”
He said the “missing link” was that Chi
had not explicitly threatened Montana with
physical harm.
Ghastin told a visibly distressed Montana
that if Chi does “something else,” she could
always return to court. “I don’t know how
else to comfort you,” he said.
Montana said that after everything she’d
been through, she was not surprised with
the outcome.
She said she wonders what women are
supposed to do if their driver decides to
stalk them, or any other person who finds
out where they live or work during the
course of a business transaction. Is there no
recourse? Isn’t her address supposed to be
privileged information?
“This is how I feel right now - nobody is
taking me very seriously, and I feel like I’m
in harm’s way and everyone is brushing me
off,” she said. “I’m a human being.”
In Oregon, a victim has to have had a
relationship with their perpetrator in order
to get a restraining order against them.
For victims like Montana who don’t know
their antagonizer, they must apply for a
stalking protective order.
“When a stranger does this stuff, it gets
tricky,” said Martha Strawn Morris, director
at The Gateway Center for Domestic
Violence Services.
“It’s purposefully harder to get a stalking
order because once you get one, it’s
permanent, whereas the rest of the
protective orders expire after a year. It’s just
a higher standard,” she said.
Strawn M orris said that if Montana were
working with her center, she’d be looking
for follow-up from the police and District
Attorney’s Office.
“I would be pounding down their door,
saying there’s no other options for court
protections for this person; we need the
criminal justice system to step up, right
here, right now and hold this person
accountable,” she said.
But Chi’s case has not been submitted to
the Multnomah County District Attorney s
Office for prosecution, Deputy District
Attorney Jeffrey Lowe said. He said that a
IF YOU ARE BEING STALKED
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query of the Portland Police Bureau
database didn’t render any matches for Chi
either, but that Montana should continue to
report any contact.
That Chi continued his contact through
the mail is another barrier to getting
protection. Unless he sends a letter
containing threats of violence, the First
Amendment protects his ramblings under
free speech provisions, no matter how
alarming.
“In Oregon,” said Melanie Kebler, senior
staff attorney at Oregon Crime Victims Law
Center, “we have a strong freedom-of-speech
provision in our law. So if any of the
unwanted contacts are communicative in
nature: texts, letters, emails, calls - any kind
of speech-based contact has to meet an even
higher standard in order to qualify the
person for stalking.”
S h e said th e victim also h a s to b e ab le to
articulate to the judge that they are having
reasonable apprehension or alarm regarding
their personal safety, and if they can’t do
that, it makes it difficult for a judge to grant
a stalking protective order.
“It’s a difficult standard,” Kebler said.
“And yeah - there is a lot of bad behavior
you can engage in and not be subject to a
stalking protective order.”
In 1999, the Oregon Court of Appeals
heard a challenge to the stalking law arguing
it violated free-speech laws (Oregon v.
Rangel). But the court found that if
threatening speech was involved, than it was
not in violation of the U.S. or Oregon
WEDNESDAYS 2-7PM
JLIFOOD CO-OP
If someone you’ve been in an intimate
relationship with is stalking you and you
live in Multnomah County, The Gateway
to help your situation. Cali 503-988-
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Center to find out if you might qualify for
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Constitution, because threatening speech is
not protected.
It set the precedent for requiring that
communication from the stalker contain a
threat to qualify for a stalking order.
“Letters in general, that does get tough,”
Kebler said. “Unfortunately, some folks do
end up moving.”
The Oregon Department of Justice offers
an Address Confidentiality Program for
victims who move and want to conceal their
whereabouts.
While Chi’s behavior was inappropriate
and unsettling, were Montana’s fears
justified? Street Roots asked a stalking
expert.
Eric Hickey, Dean of the California School
of Forensic Studies at Alliant International
University, is a criminologist often called on
as an e x p e r t w itn e s s an d c o n s u lta n t in
stalk in g an d o th e r crim in al c a se s.
Hickey said the reason Chi isn’t
threatening Montana is because he’s
infatuated with her.
“Most of these creepers tend to go away
with time and simply ignoring them,” he
said. “Sounds simple, but not if you are the
subject of their admirations. Police tend to
see it as not that big an issue because no
threats are being made, but at the least it is
harassment.
“If he is obsessed with her, then
rationality goes by the wayside, and he will
continue to stalk her, and often they
escalate,” Hickey said. “The fact that he has
met her, been to her home and work, and is
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making efforts to contact her against her
wishes places him higher on the threat
scale. On a scale of 0 to 10, he is around a
6-7 in level of dangerousness. That means
he probably won’t do anything to harm her,
but because the threat is reasonably high,
she needs to protect herself physically and
emotionally. The longer this goes on, the
more it can undermine her psychologically.”
Twelve days after she was denied the
stalking protective order, Montana got
another letter from Chi.
Oddly, it was postmarked July 3 but
arrived on July 22. Did he retrieve it from
her mailbox and put it back at a later date?
In this letter, Chi wrote:
“I saw your FB page for the first time last
night. Saw a picture of myself and got really
scared. I’m way to scared to click on the
photo of me or to continue looking further
on your page. I freaking look like Jabba the
Hut. Hey, so, are you still mad at me? I can’t
imagine you still being mad at me after that
5 page apology/explanation... I saw your
instagram post with the Oregon coast rock.
Is that a message for me? I do think it is,
but there’s no way I can be 100% s u re ....
Hey so when you go to Costa Rica since
Latin America is really dangerous, I should
be your bodyguard I’ll just stay a few blocks
away, you don’t have to talk to me during
the yoga program and I’ll get binoculars and
just keep a lookout. ...”
Montana is glad to be leaving the country
for a while, but terrified that Chi knows
w h e re sh e is going. S h e said s h e ’s d o n e w ith
b a rte n d in g a n d h a s sin c e m a d e h e r social
m e d ia p ro file s p riv a te . S h e ’ll b e g o in g o n
another trip shortly after she returns.
She said it’s unlikely she’ll return to
court because at least for now, Chi doesn’t
know her real name and she’d like to keep
it that way if she’s only going to get denied
again.
“I had this crazy stress dream,” she said,
“where the dude came for me, no one was
around, and he stabbed my arm into the
wall, and I was like, OK. I’m going to let him
rape me because then I will finally have
hard evidence against him.”
emily@streetroots. org
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