The crazy lady in White Bear Lake Minnesota had her day in court this morning in Ramsey County, and the verdict has hit the news media; there was no delay, it was prompt and it sent a clear message. Thanks to my blogging friend J-Pete for catching that the news was out, and kindly alerting me.
I'm not sure which is the more serious part of this sentence - the 90 days behind bars, or debarring her from ever returning to her home for the next 4 1/2 years. This woman appears to be the single mother of a daughter; she has a pet. Will her boss hold her job while she does another 90 days on top of the 30 she just did? How does her stuff get moved out, etc.? Will she sell her house - and what poor unsuspecting neighbors will get her next? She has to live somewhere. More to the point --- will THIS be enough to stop her behavior from continuing? OR will she do this again? The hard core harassers despite incarceration, have been known to continue their illegal conduct even while in the clink.
It will be interesting to see how stalking charges play out in this case. It is an aspect of the harassment that interests me particularly. I'll have to keep an eye on this kind of local news to see when those charges are heard in court, and what happens.
I feel badly for the harassed neighbors, especially their children. I feel very badly for this woman's daughter; living with someone who behaves like this must be a matter of perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some new unacceptable behavior to be expressed, some new disruption to occur to upend home stability.
The people, like this woman going off to jail for harassment, I would bet don't see themselves as bad parents, bad spouses, or bad neighbors. But despite how they see themselves, I can't imagine these people who engage in this kind of behavior are very nice to those around them. There seems to be something off, or missing or misfiring, something internal that gets jazzed about trying to make others feel badly, including in this case particularly going after making children miserable. There is some compassion connection, some empathy capacity that may work intermittently, but that doesn't seem to quite function normally in these people who harass others in comparison to other people. This behavior seems to be about bullying other people because it builds up some weird sense of power in the harasser. That sense of power, in my opinion, is an illusion; it really only isolates and alienates the harasser from everyone else, not just their target for that most recent bad act. Maybe that is what drives them to do the irrational things they do; I don't know, making sense of the nonsensical is beyond me. But here is the update today on the scandalous crazy lady from White Bear Lake, MN.
The STrib covered it here:
Lori E. Christensen, who is accused of the serial harassment of her neighbors, was sentenced to serve 90 days in the Ramsey County workhouse after she admitted Wednesday that she had violated terms of her probation.
She is to report to jail Monday.
Ramsey County District Judge George Stephenson also told Christensen, 49, that she could not be within a mile of her house at Homewood Place in White Bear Lake, an order that is expected to last at least for the remainder of her probation of about 4 1/2 years.
Her attorney, Gary Wolf, told the judge that Christensen had no intentions of returning to her house.
Last week, Christensen was charged with two counts of aggravated stalking in connection with the recent videotaping and phone calls regarding neighbors Kim and Greg Hoffman. Those charges have not yet been dealt with.
The incidents occurred after Christensen previously served time in the county correctional facility for violating a harassment restraining order obtained two years ago by the Hoffmans.
The two have accused Christensen of repeatedly taunting Kim Hoffman, a recovering alcoholic, with numerous signs that included a handwritten statement, "I saw mommy kissing a Breathalyzer."
Christensen's behavior has generated at least 80 calls to police in the past three years, Police Chief Lynne Bankes said last week.
[by]Anthony Lonetree
This exact same situation is happening to my fiance and myself. It is HORRIFIC. We are living in hell everyday and feel like we are imprisoned in the apartment we pay for! It's horrible :( I am trying to look into what to do. We wanted a restraining order against her but the police said they can't unless we are related or in a romantic relationship! To me, that doesn't make any sense at all. People harass others even if they are not those things. We ARE being harassed, bullied, intimidated, and she is conspiring with others to terrorize us. I have a HUGE binder FULL of proof, video and all contact with her. Also the police reports which the police have told us they know she is out of her mind. They said, "she cannot keep her story straight." So if we can't get a restraining order...what can we do? It's been over 2 years already.
ReplyDeletemimmiejoy, welcome to Penigma. You don't need the police to do the restraining order, you can go to your local county or municipal jurisidiction, ask to speak to the clerk of courts and pay the filing fee for a restraining order. Another option is to seek out your local legal aid society; they do quite a few of those kinds of low income restraining orders (I volunteered clerical help at ours for a while).
ReplyDeleteI would suggest that the harassment you are experiencing is perhaps a bit different than our blog harassment, but possibly very much like the harassment done by the evil neighbor in the STrib story. Legal aic might be able to help you with the police as well. There is NO legal requirement of which I am aware that a romantic relationshihp or a familial relationship is required for some sort of restraining order. Worst case scenario, if you decide you need a criminal rather than a civil restraining order, you might be wise to pursue at least some preliminary legal advice for a criminal complaint. You can also cntacct your local prosecuting attorney, essentially going over the head / authority of law enforcement.
The best advice I can give you is to persevere, don't give up, and start a notebook, in which you carefully document all of your conversations, noting phone numbers and/or extensions and departments, names and titles of who you speak with, and a line or two about what was said, if any action was provided and if so when that is supposed to be concluded.
Persevere, persevere, persevere -- and document, document, document. Photo and video footage is your friend, and if not those, then audio recording. The neighbors in the White Bear Lake case had to go through a lot before they got rid of their hellish harpy neighbor. But they did, eventually.