Sunday 4th January 2004
Ooh. 4th Jaunary 2004. The site is seven years old now. That's kinda scary. So is this....
18-9-111 - Harassment - stalking. (1) A person commits harassment if, with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm
another person, he or she: (a) Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise touches a person
or subjects him to physical contact; or
(b) In a public place directs obscene language or makes an
obscene gesture to or at another person; or
(c) Follows a person in or about a public place; or
(d) Repealed.
(e) Initiates communication with a person, anonymously or
otherwise by telephone, computer, computer network, or computer system in a
manner intended to harass or threaten bodily injury or property damage, or makes
any comment, request, suggestion, or proposal by telephone, computer, computer
network, or computer system that is obscene; or
(f) Makes a telephone call or causes a telephone to ring
repeatedly, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate
conversation; or
(g) Makes repeated communications at inconvenient hours that
invade the privacy of another and interfere in the use and enjoyment of another's
home or private residence or other private property; or
(h) Repeatedly insults, taunts, challenges, or makes communications
in offensively coarse language to, another in a manner likely to provoke a violent
or disorderly response.
(1.5) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise
requires, "obscene" means a patently offensive description of ultimate sexual
acts or solicitation to commit ultimate sexual acts, whether or not said ultimate
sexual acts are normal or perverted, actual or simulated, including masturbation,
cunnilingus, fellatio, anilingus, or excretory functions.
(2) Harassment pursuant to subsection (1) of this section
is a class 3 misdemeanor; except that harassment is a class 1 misdemeanor if
the offender commits harassment pursuant to subsection (1) of this section with
the intent to intimidate or harass another person because of that person's actual
or perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, or national origin.
(3) Any act prohibited by paragraph (e) of subsection (1)
of this section may be deemed to have occurred or to have been committed at
the place at which the telephone call, electronic mail, or other electronic
communication was either made or received.
(4) (a) The general assembly hereby finds and declares
that stalking is a serious problem in this state and nationwide. Although stalking
often involves persons who have had an intimate relationship with one another,
it can also involve persons who have little or no past relationship. A stalker
will often maintain strong, unshakable, and irrational emotional feelings for
his or her victim, and may likewise believe that the victim either returns these
feelings of affection or will do so if the stalker is persistent enough. Further,
the stalker often maintains this belief, despite a trivial or nonexistent basis
for it and despite rejection, lack of reciprocation, efforts to restrict or
avoid the stalker, and other facts that conflict with this belief. A stalker
may also develop jealousy and animosity for persons who are in relationships
with the victim, including family members, employers and co-workers, and friends,
perceiving them as obstacles or as threats to the stalker's own "relationship"
with the victim. Because stalking involves highly inappropriate intensity, persistence,
and possessiveness, it entails great unpredictability and creates great stress
and fear for the victim. Stalking involves severe intrusions on the victim's
personal privacy and autonomy, with an immediate and long-lasting impact on
quality of life as well as risks to security and safety of the victim and persons
close to the victim, even in the absence of express threats of physical harm.
The general assembly hereby recognizes the seriousness posed by stalking and
adopts the provisions of this subsection (4) and subsections (5) and (6) of
this section with the goal of encouraging and authorizing effective intervention
before stalking can escalate into behavior that has even more serious consequences.
(b) A person commits stalking if directly, or indirectly
through another person, such person knowingly:
(I) Makes a credible threat to another person and, in connection
with such threat, repeatedly follows, approaches, contacts, or places under
surveillance that person, a member of that person's immediate family, or someone
with whom that person has or has had a continuing relationship; or
(II) Makes a credible threat to another person and, in connection
with such threat, repeatedly makes any form of communication with that person,
a member of that person's immediate family, or someone with whom that person
has or has had a continuing relationship, regardless of whether a conversation
ensues; or
(III) Repeatedly follows, approaches, contacts, places under
surveillance, or makes any form of communication with another person, a member
of that person's immediate family, or someone with whom that person has or has
had a continuing relationship in a manner that would cause a reasonable person
to suffer serious emotional distress and does cause that person, a member of
that person's immediate family, or someone with whom that person has or has
had a continuing relationship to suffer serious emotional distress. For purposes
of this subparagraph (III), a victim need not show that he or she received professional
treatment or counseling to show that he or she suffered serious emotional distress.
(c) For the purposes of this subsection (4):
(I) Conduct "in connection with" a credible threat means
acts which further, advance, promote, or have a continuity of purpose, and may
occur before, during, or after the credible threat;
(II) "Credible threat" means a threat, physical action, or
repeated conduct that would cause a reasonable person to be in fear for the
person's safety or the safety of his or her immediate family or of someone with
whom the person has or has had a continuing relationship. Such threat need not
be directly expressed if the totality of the conduct would cause a reasonable
person such fear.
(III) "Immediate family" includes the person's spouse and
the person's parent, grandparent, sibling, or child; and
(IV) "Repeated" or "repeatedly" means on more than one occasion.
(5) Where a person commits stalking under paragraph (b) of
subsection (4) of this section, the following shall apply:
(a) A person commits a class 5 felony for a first offense.
(a.5) For a second or subsequent offense, if such offense
occurs within seven years of the date of a prior offense for which such person
was convicted, the offender commits a class 4 felony.
(b) If, at the time of the offense, there was a temporary
or permanent restraining order, injunction, or condition of bond, probation,
or parole or any other court order in effect against such person prohibiting
the behavior described in paragraph (b) of subsection (4) of this section, such
person commits a class 4 felony. In addition, when a violation under subsection
(4) of this section is committed in connection with a violation of a court order,
including but not limited to any restraining order or any order that sets forth
the conditions of a bond, any sentence imposed for such violation pursuant to
this subsection (5) shall run consecutively and not concurrently with any sentence
imposed pursuant to section contempt proceeding for violation of the court order.
Nothing in this paragraph (b) shall be construed to alter or diminish the inherent
authority of the court to enforce its orders through civil or criminal contempt
proceedings; however, before a criminal contempt proceeding is heard before
the court, notice of the proceedings shall be provided to the district attorney
for the district of the court where the proceedings are to be heard and the
district attorney for the district of the court where the alleged act of criminal
contempt occurred. The district attorney for either district shall be allowed
to appear and argue for the imposition of contempt sanctions.
(6) A peace officer shall have a duty to respond as soon
as reasonably possible to a report of stalking and to cooperate with the alleged
victim in investigating such report. July 1. Editor's note: Amendments to subsection (5)
in House Bill 94-1045 and House Bill 94-1126 were harmonized. Cross
references: For provisions concerning harassment by debt collectors or collection
agencies, see § 12-14-106.
Gravamen of this offense is the thrusting of an offensive
and unwanted communication on one who is unable to ignore it. People v. Weeks,
197 Colo. 175, 591 P.2d 91 (1979).
Defendant's spitting on the tenant constituted "physical
contact" within the meaning of subsection (1)(a). People v. Peay, 5 P.3d
398 (Colo. App. 2000).
Subsection (1)(d) held unconstitutionally vague. This
subsection violates the due process clause because it contains no limiting standards
to define what conduct is prohibited and, conversely, what conduct is permitted.
People v. Norman, 703 P.2d 1261 (Colo. 1985).
Former subsection (1)(e) was facially overbroad and therefore
unconstitutional. Bolles v. People, 189 Colo. 394, 541 P.2d 80 (1975).
Subsection (1)(e) held not to be unconstitutionally vague
because the statute defined the offense with particularized standards to limit
the scope of the offense and the presence in the statute of the words "annoy"
and "alarm", by themselves, were not sufficient to render the statute unconstitutionally
vague. People v. McBurney, 750 P.2d 916 (Colo. 1988).
Subsection (1)(g) is facially overbroad and unconstitutionally
vague and there are no limiting constructions that will render it constitutional.
People v. Smith, 862 P.2d 939 (Colo. 1993).
A defendant lacks standing to challenge the constitutionality
of a statute as facially overbroad when the defendants alleged speech is
precisely the type of activity which the telephone harassment statute was designed
to regulate. People v. McBurney, 750 P.2d 916 (Colo. 1988).
This section and § 18-3-207, which classifies criminal
extortion as a felony, address separate and distinct crimes and the classification
of such offenses have a rational basis in fact and are reasonably related to
legitimate government interests. People v. Czemerynski, 786 P.2d 1100 (Colo.
1990).
Subsection (1)(h) is not unconstitutionally vague
on its face. People ex rel. VanMeveren v. County Court, 191 Colo. 201, 551 P.2d
716 (1976).
The limited scope of the statute brings it within permissible
limitations on free expression. People ex rel. VanMeveren v. County Court, 191
Colo. 201, 551 P.2d 716 (1976).
Subsection (4)(a)(II) held constitutional. By burdening
only those communications furthering, promoting, or advancing an expressed credible
threat, subsection (4)(a)(II) does not reach protected conduct. People v. Baer,
973 P.2d 1225 (Colo. 1999).
Nor is the provision void for vagueness since a person of
ordinary intelligence can know what conduct is proscribed. People v. Baer, 973
P.2d 1225 (Colo. 1999).
What subsection (1)(h) prohibits. Subsection (1)(h)
prohibits (1) "fighting words", as heretofore defined, addressed to another
person, (2) consisting of insults, taunts, or challenges, (3) repeatedly made,
and (4) with intent to harass, annoy, or alarm another person. People ex rel.
VanMeveren v. County Court, 191 Colo. 201, 551 P.2d 716 (1976).
Subsection (1)(h) requires an objective determination:
Whether the words when directed to an average person would tend to induce an
immediate breach of the peace. People ex rel. VanMeveren v. County Court, 191
Colo. 201, 551 P.2d 716 (1976).
"Annoy" in this section means "to irritate with a nettling
or exasperating effect". Bolles v. People, 189 Colo. 394, 541 P.2d 80 (1975).
"Alarm" in this section means "to arouse to a sense
of danger; to put on the alert; to strike with fear; fill with anxiety as to
threaten danger or harm". Bolles v. People, 189 Colo. 394, 541 P.2d 80 (1975).
"Repeatedly" is a word of such common understanding
that its meaning is not vague. It simply means in the context of subsection
(1)(h) that the defendant uses insulting, taunting, or challenging language
more than one time. People ex rel. VanMeveren v. County Court, 191 Colo. 201,
551 P.2d 716 (1976).
Use of "obscene" in subsection (1)(e). Although subsection
(1)(e) uses the word "obscene" to describe the speech which is prohibited, that
subsection is clearly not designed to regulate the purveyance of "obscenity"
as that word is used in Miller v. California (413 U.S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37
L.Ed.2d 419, rehearing denied, 414 U.S. 881, 94 S. Ct. 26, 38 L.Ed.2d 128 (1973)).
Whatever the requirements of Miller v. California may be in a prosecution for
alleged violations of law prohibiting published obscenity, those requirements
are inapposite when the question is whether the state may prohibit unwanted
verbal assaults on a person within the privacy of his own home. People v. Weeks,
197 Colo. 175, 591 P.2d 91 (1979).
The phrase "in connection with" indicates an intention
by the general assembly that a continued relationship between the credible threat
and the repeated communications is contemplated. People v. Baer, 973 P.2d
1225 (Colo. 1999).
A person must directly, or indirectly through another person,
knowingly make a credible threat to another person and repeatedly make any form
of communication with the recipient of the threat. People v. Baer, 973 P.2d
1225 (Colo. 1999).
The repeated communications may occur before, during, or
after the credible threat but they must be connected to the threat. People v.
Baer, 973 P.2d 1225 (Colo. 1999).
Whether the repeated communications are "in connection
with" the threat is a matter of fact just as the existence of a credible
threat itself. People v. Baer, 973 P.2d 1225 (Colo. 1999).
The defendant could not have been charged with a violation
of subsection (4) until all of the elements of the crime are completed.
People v. Bastian, 981 P.2d 203 (Colo. App. 1998).
The defendant may be charged with increased penalties because
of amendments to subsection (4) that became effective in July when the defendant
did not consummate following the victim until August, but had committed elements
of the offense prior to July. People v. Bastian, 981 P.2d 203 (Colo. App. 1998).
Applied in Verner v. Colorado, 533 F. Supp. 1109 (D.
Colo. 1982). This laws actually makes it a felony to spam me with offers to make my dick bigger, offers to join up at pornsites, and so on, so long as I'm within the state of Colorado when I receive this shit; it covers things posted to my messageboard, since I'm in this state when I receive them; it even covers idiots in chatrooms telling me to repent or burn in hell, since I'm in Denver when they tell me that. I'm just pleased now. Laws like this probably explain why I never see televangelists actually using this most basic terrorist tactic: receiving their transmitted threat in a state containing a law like this would actually make them criminals. It all makes sense now.
Learn how to solve your debt problem!
thank you for waiting, image will appear below
You ought to join one, declared the little man seriously
I belong to Bailum & Barney's Great Consolidated Shows--three rings in one tent and a menagerie on the side
Not that he had ever heard of the place, or knew its name; for few Europeans and only one American traveler had ever visited it
It's a fine aggregation, I assure you But he guessed it was a city of some importance from its size and beauty, and resolved to make a stop there
Whee.
Those who have been coming to gremlin.net for any measurable amount of time have already seen evidence of some of my stalkers. BangBang is the most obvious, of course; there have been other, and--sadly--lesser stalkers before and since. Most of them have been arguably harmless morons from other states and countries. So, for the most part, the FBI just catalogue the threats these idiot make for future reference. For example, if and when matt19original@yahoo.com ever conjures up the wherewithal to come to Denver to kill me with an icepick, as promised a few years ago, there's already enough on file to arrest him simply for entering my zipcode.
This, however, is a different scenario. This time, I've got what legally appears to be a stalker right here in town. It works like this.
Once upon a time, back in the twentieth century, I wound up going to DuhMoines and getting stuck there. That's a story on its own. The important part is that I finally managed to get back here to Denver, along with my car and with Hunter. That was good news.
Having got back here, I didn't actually have a place to live. So I ended up staying with friends for a while. Then they moved to Indiana, where I was in no mood to go, and I had to find a place to live here in Colorado.
It turns out that's not the easiest thing to do. Especially on short notice. So, once we worked out through experience that staying at hotels was cost-prohibitve, Greenback proposed staying at his place--actually his mother's place--until something better could be worked out.
She was...officially, she was okay with it. At least, that's what she told me. Off the record, she'd jump up and down [literally, which is scary since she's five feet tall or so, and well over four hundred pounds], screaming at Greenback about the imposition. Then, if I walked out of the next room, she'd reset back to being delighted that I was there. Very, very strange.
So that wasn't working very well. I kept looking for alternatives.
So. I'm looking for alternatives in general. Meanwhile, I'm doing verious other stuff. Like catching problems here and there with bills, showing her how to get out of needlessly spending several hundred bucks a month, and so on. Stuff I just tend to do as a hobby, really. Also, it seemed kinda fair, to me, since we were effectively living in this place for free; no one ever suggested that we should be paying rent or anything. Which would have been a bad idea in the first place, since the house was part of a HUD project, wasn't even remotely up to code, and wasn't zoned as a row of flats or anything. If I committed any crime while I was there, it was actually omission of action: Greenback's little brother is officially homschooled; his mother's concept of homeschooling is a pass/fail test of whether the kid can get her the cheatcodes for the PlayStation version of CivilisationII before her bellowing demands have stopped echoing off the mountains fifty miles to the west. That's what she does. She sits in a chair playing videogames, bellowing for cheatcodes, and having the kid clean the house. Where cleaning the house is a euphemism for hiding things in the oven and dishwasher. The place had more bugs than a Windoze operating system. It was a bad scene.
To make a long story short--given that it seemed to go on for decades at the time--I finally tracked down and moved into a place. Which is roughly where I am now. Greenback, as a matter of course, moved in along with us.
For about a month afterward--in July of 2002, his mother drove around the general area [I'm not sure how she figured out the zipcode we'd moved to, but she apparently did], presumably trying to find us. Also, she had Hunter's mobile phone number, which she'd call a dozen times a day, every day, leaving messages five minutes long each, demanding various bullshit, including conversations with Greenback. I'm not sure whether she assumed that the mobile phone had an answerphone we could hear while it recorded; maybe; a lot of her messages included 'answer the fucking phone; I know you're there', and other such shit. But, after a month or so, we stopped seeing her car driving around the neighbourhood and figured she'd finally given up on whatever it was she was after. Good.
Greenback joined the navy. Which was a dumb move on its own. But it did get him even further away from his mother, which isn't a bad thing. Once it became evident that he was on the east coast, she stopped calling Hunter's phone, too. Personally, I never made the mistake of giving her the number for mine.
From what I've been able to ascertain, just based on streetlevel rumours, she's now decided that, not only does she need to talk to Greenback whenever he's alive, but that I/Hunter/We/Somebody must pay off some strange sort of debt for something. Staying there, perhaps. Who knows. I don't know how much she wants, or what reason she's trying to use to justify her demands; I don't talk to her.
I should probably mention that there are innumerable reasons why I don't talk to her. Being a badguy, I don't actually need reasons; but, in this case, I'm not simply being crass about it; this is not a creature whose attention you ever want to get. Just take my word for it.
Anyway: Greenback came back to town on New Year's Eve. He's here for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, for some reason, he decided he should go off and see his family--which includes his mother. He hasn't got a car; I was asleep; he had her pick him up at the BurgerThing I've complained about before. The BurgerThing is at a major intersection about three blocks from here. It's also the intersection at which his mother had been witnessed driving around in circles, presumably watching for my car, or something. I suppose that having her pick him up there just confirmed that this was about the right area of town.
Then, last night, he ended up getting stuck there. Swyndle was apparently supposed to pick him up from there and bring him back here, but wasn't able to. Somehow, he got back here; that's all I know so far.
Today, I woke up because someone or something was ringing my doorbell incessantly. For an hour. Anyone with any defensible reason to be here is well aware that there is no defensible reason to be here when the sun is up. So that was a hint.
Hunter peeked out the window [which has a union jack draped in it--a clue, in retrospect] and saw Greenback's mother out there in the carpark, weighing down the dirver's side of the SUV, while her remaining kid, under pain of pass/fail testing, rang the damned bell over and over. Joy.
Eventually, Hunter gave up and got Greenback to go deal with it. He went and got into the SUV [he and his brother are each about two hundred pounds, which didn't actually offset the lurch to the driver's side of the damned thing, even with the counterbalancing] and disappeared. Fortunately, so did the SUV.
So far, that's about all I know about it. Except that Hunter told Greenback to tell his mother that, if she--his mother--ever rang the doorbell or knocked on the door again, Hunter was going to have her arrested for stalking us.
It almost sounds like an empty threat. But, as it turns out, it's not. I looked it up. The antistalking laws in Colorado are simply scary. In fact, it turns out that I was nearly guilty of it a few years ago when I EMailed a bank with a link to a NotS I'd written about them, after they'd tried to close my account for fraud [the bank apparently didn't know what PayPal.com were; PayPal's security method of depositing a few cents into your account to confirm that you control it was actually inferred by the bank to be the criminal act of laundering nickels]; when I finally went into the bank to show them--with my laptop--what PayPal.com was, the cops were there, waiting to arrest me for something; based on the laws here, merely EMailing someone with a link to a file which contains the phrase fucking morons is dangerously close to a criminal act; if I'd copypasted the thing into the EMail itself, I'd actually have been guilty.
Which, for me, is great news. Since this neat little law actually does a lot of good for things like all the damned spam I get. Also, it shows Greenback's mother to be a criminal.
Also, Greenback's mother, or any agent she employs, is legally disallowed from ringing my fucking doorbell incessantly, calling Hunter's phone, et cetera. If the bitch thinks she's got a written arrangement with me regarding fees for services rendered, she can have a judge send me a summons. She's not legally allowed to come here anymore.
Now, to be fair about this, I'm going to let it slide for now. Which is to say that I'm being fair to Hunter, who explicitly conveyed the warning that, next time this shit happens, someone's going to prison. I'll back her on that. Although I personally doubt I'll have to wait very long.
What I'm actually predicting is that, eventually, she'll be back over here, hurting her SUV's shocks while her kid rings my doorbell. Then Hunter'll call 911 and have the cops come out to remove our stalker. The cops, witnessing the crime, will probably offer her the warning: 'No one wants you here; next time you're seen here, you'll be arrested'; that, operating as a simple, official restraining order, will allow her to be arrested, tried, and convicted the time after that.
Of course, I have, in the past, got more official restraining orders against people. And those explicitly forbid calling me, EMailing me, coming within a kilometre of me, and so on. But that's probably overkill. If and when she returns and goes on record as having been told not to return again, it'll amount to the same thing; the time after that, she's fucked. And, interestingly enough, it's not even my fault.
Okay. Let's go find a good Spam of the Day....
Hate making those monthly credit card payments?
There are worse things....
Prayer?
I'm on a cablemodem, downloading up to twenty megabits per second, and this fucking thing took nearly a minute to finish loading; someone's server is on a dialup.
Blah, blah, blah; boring boring boring....
Join one what? A creditcard company? Not a chance: Greenback's mother works for one of those....
Where there's a sucker born every minute....
The Accidental Turist. And no, that's not a typo; it's Haxor for n00b; although there is a typo on traveller, especially if this is supposed to be European.
Speaking of places to make a stop: go directly to jail; do not pass Go; do not collect two hundred dollars; you're in violation of Colorado Law 18-9-111 >:)In other news...let's see....
Oh. This is news. One thing I've been really working on getting around to doing lately was tracking down a friend of mine who's an evolutionary biologist, to bounce the idea of zombies off of him. I managed to do that today, and he happened to have a few really amazingly cool ideas. It turns out that there is a biological possibility of zombification after all. It's unlikely that this thing would ever evolve, but it was equally unlikely that AIDS and Ebloa would ever evolve. And that's all I really needed to know.
So: I just scrubbed Pandemic. I'm starting over with the idea I'd had in the first place, before I figured that a simple biological agent was effectively PFM. I hate to say this--especially before I've ever written the damned book--but this is going to be exceedingly fucking cool. Better still, my little plot device is a logical, defensible, a possible mutation.
Also, it makes zombies far fucking scarier than I've ever seen them depicted, just by its nature. The idea actually upsets me; and that never really happens here. I went off looking for a way to make zombies, and got a perfectly unfair answer to the question. This novel is going to be pure fucking evil.
And that's all I'm going to say about it for now. As much fun as it is to discuss this thing...I'll try to have the book out this year.
More later....
--Gremlin