When Laws that Protect People are Not Prosecuted, Bad Things Happen

I have been watching the  stories and articles about the Cranston prayer banner and Jessica Alquist with great interest and concern. For me, it really was not about whether the prayer should stay or go. That surprised me because I am a strong believer that there should not be prayer in state mandated schools. But that prayer was obviously written, even by 1960's standards, with great care not to preach to any religion and tried not to offend anyone. So please no comments about whether the banner should stay or not  because this blog is not about the banner and I don't care one way or the other.

I remember thinking that when I first saw the banner back in 2002 when Barrington high school performed at Cranston West High school at the New England  drama Festival ( we got to go to the New England festival by winning the regional festival and the Rhode Island Drama festival, the last time Barrington won). I remember thinking, yes it is a Christian prayer, but it really wasn't a very offensive one.

What is offensive is what has happened to Jessica since. She had every right to file a suit with the court to have it taken down and as the judge clearly pointed out it is technically illegal. and people had a right to be unhappy about it. It is a fair issue and as  true in all issues people can take one side or another and debate whether it should come down or not. and ifto if the minority should have the protection of the laws and the right to have their grievances addressed in court. It is all fair for discussion. You will look hard to find someone that believes in free speech more than I do. People disagree with me all the time. And that is fine. I expect it.

But death threats?  People insisting that she leave the school? Police escorting her to each class? And home from school? Flower shops, multiple flower shops yet, refusing to just  deliver a dozen roses to her? They had to be delivered from a store out of state? 

A state rep calling her, this small bright honest well presented young woman, "an evil little thing" ? Extra police patrols at her house and at the school because the blogosphere,  face book, twitter,  ect. were afire with threats to do her bodily harm. Will she be refused service at Burger King next?

There is something especially insidious about threats that come from the computer. Especially when it comes from so many angry people  at once trying to frighten  her, to intimidate her. She should not have to live through that, never mind try to going to school through that. No one should have to live with that! There should be a law to stop people from doing this threatening behavior.

But wait in Rhode Island there is!

Title 11

RI Criminal offenses

Chapter 11-52 Section 4.2

 Cyber stalking and Cyber harassment Prohibited (a) Whoever transmits any communication by computer or other device to any person or causes any person to be contacted for the sole purpose of harassing that person or his or her family is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall  be punished by a fine of not more than $500, by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. For purpose of this section, "harassing" means any knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person which seriously alarms, annoys, or bothers the person, and which serves no legitimate purpose. the course of conduct must be of a kind that a would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, or be in fear of bodily injury.

(b) A second or subsequent conviction under subsection (a)of this section shall be deemed a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 2 years, by a fine of not more than six thousand dollars( 6,000) or both.

Reading that law it would hard not to think that there are many students and parents who have gone beyond civil discourse and crossed into the above definition of cyber stalking and cyber harassment in Cranston. But no one has been charged with a crime. The newspaper said that one student got detention for threatening online to beat her when she came back to school.  Detention is what a student gets for coming to class 15 minutes late! How devastating to the student! I am sure he learned his lesson! Who would dare risk having to stay after school for 20 minutes more than once!

This kind of cyber harassment is a feeling like no other. Until you have gone through it you can't really know what it is. God knows I am not afraid to stand in front of an angry crowd, alone, with a unpopular opinion that I believe in. I have done it before. If you remember the  town revaluation meeting, one of the angriest meetings in town history, when I stood up and opposed the possibility of town council submitting to BET's demand, throwing out the reval, because if they had it  would have been unfair to the 75% of the people, who would have to pay more taxes unfairly. People were very angry with me. I mean very angry. But it was in person. It was real, and people told me that they thought I was wrong, but no one really crossed the line.

But online people will write things that they would never say in person. Only a few people I am aware of know how truly disconcerting, how upsetting this is. Josh Bickford knows, it was done to him. Ed Achorn at the Providence Journal knows, it has been done to him. Town Manager Peter DeAngelis knows what it is.  Former Rep Doug Gablinske from Bristol knows. There was a female reporter for RI monthly that a few Barrington residents discussed cutting off her breasts on line because of an article she wrote about Barrington teens. I haven't talked to her, but  I am pretty sure she knows. It is different when it is a faceless person making comments and threats. It is more painful.

I have been told often that I am a pretty good writer, in spite of my junior English teacher telling our class that I would never write an intelligent or coherent paragraph as long as I live. (Though I confess I am still a lousy speller).

But then last June it happened to me. I was attacked online, by dozens of mostly teenagers. I have to tell you, after writing over a thousand or so of these articles in the last 25 years, I am still pretty sure I don't think I have the words to convey the feelings that accompany this kind of event.

The feeling of not knowing if your house was vandalized overnight. Getting up at 3 a.m. and looking outside. Checking both ways walking on the street or leaving the grocery store. Worrying if your kids are getting comments or being harassed at school, on the bus, or worse. Not being sure I could protect my family from dozens of  nameless, faceless people who made veiled and unveiled threats to me and my kids. Having to have blog post after blog post taken down, posts that people posted threatening my family. I never thought I would feel this way living in a town like Barrington. It was to say the least disconcerting.

There were comments of course that were part of the normal discourse arguing the points at issue. But then there were the  threats to my children, people came 150 yards onto my property at night, disparaging comments made about me and members of my family. Someone had taken my picture and put this caption under it: "I am going to do things to your anus that you cannot conceive of." It was taken down and then put back up, and taken down again.

That was really bad, one of the worse times of my life. What was worse was when I took it to the police. I was told immediately that there really wasn't any way that this would get prosecuted, but they would investigate it. I asked what was there to investigate? Here is the names of the people who made the threats! I read the law above and it seemed pretty black and white to me.

And then I was told by the police about the case of  the reporter from RI Monthly, the woman whose breasts were potentially going to be cut off, and the AG's office refused to prosecute. I thought how could that be but it was indeed the case. The police told me they would " investigate." Investigate being police code for not doing anything.

Well, all the information in the case was found by me not the police. And I was confident that it was enough. I was stalled for over two months, asked for more and more information, until ultimately I was told by a Barrington detective that a" reasonable" person would not consider a picture threatening my anus as harassment under the law above.

I  have to tell you, I have spoken to dozens of reasonable people about this and they all agree that a reasonable person would feel, as the law states in its definition " harassing" means any knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person which seriously alarms, annoys, or bothers the person, and which serves no legitimate purpose. the course of conduct must be of a kind that a would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, or be in fear of bodily injury".

Frankly, I don't know how the detective said it with a straight face. After being calm for two months I admit got angry. I did not know if the detective said it out of sheer apathy of the Barrington police department to my fate, or was it simply that of their frustration that the AG's office simple refusal to prosecute these cases. That is  unless of course it concerns a state Rep. like Doug Gablinske. That case they prosecuted.  Because it was a political case.  They did not prosecute the case of the people who wanted to cut off the woman's breasts. That they would not prosecute. And certainly not the people who went after me.

Cyber harassment is a big problem in RI. Cranston must have made that clear to even the blissfully obtuse. But still the AG's office will not and has not  prosecuted. They are "investigating" the cases of the threats to Jessica. While she lives in fear all day long every day. Escorted by police to class. Again you have to have lived it to have a feeling of what she is going through.

What the hell is there to investigate? They know who did it they signed their names and left IP addresses!!!

The General Assembly passed this law to stop, or at least slow the behavior that is going on in Cranston. And the Attorney General's office won't prosecute obvious offenders.  If you want these kids, or the adults,  to stop this reprehensible behavior,  catch 3 or 4, convict them, fine them or give them community service and put it on their record.

Have it there to be seen when they apply to college that they are cyber stalkers. Cyber Harassers.  See if Harvard or Yale will take a student with a 4.0 GPA and a conviction of cyber harassment. Maybe, just maybe, all these kids who are worried about college, loading up on extracurricular activites to get a better chance to get in to the best schools, will think twice before threatening someone.  Very few colleges would take them after a conviction. The word will get out and the problem will slow to a trickle. Or for the adults, when they apply to a job it will show up in a background check. Once they realize the consequence of their actions certainly there will be less of this despicable behavior.

But as long as the AG's office is more concerned with open meeting violations and remote document access from towns than they are about people's actual safety, then you will see what happened to Jessica Alquist happen over and over again.

It isn't that I don't think that the AG shouldn't look into what happened at BCWA, or look at towns that don't give up paperwork, they should. But perhaps enforce that paperwork law with perhaps 1/4 the resources and time as laws protecting people's lives like the law above instead of ignoring the cyber laws.  If there is time to sue towns over release of obscure documents, then there is time to protect individuals from angry mobs.

It is the AG's office misplaced sense of priorities, it's the AG's offices' interest in scoring political points, and it's cowardly refusal to take on an angry mob if you will, that is the problem here. For when what happened to Jessica Alquist happens again and surely it will, and someone gets really hurt, at that time, that the AG's office should be considered criminally culpable.

When that happens the AG should be sued for creating an atmosphere that allowed it to happen. Chapter 11-52 is the law, and they, the Attorney General's office, is there to protect the public from law breakers and should enforce this law,  even if they don't like it. Perhaps with more enthusiasm then they show prosecuting towns like ours and agencies  that are slow to divulge tons of irrelevant documents to crusading zealots with nothing better to do than incur large costs for  the taxpayers in this town to bear, for frivolous complaints by zealots who comment repeatedly on these pages without so much as the courage to sign their names.

After what happened to me and my family last June, I had decided I wasn't going to write again. In this I was wrong.  Jessica Alquist has shown me up. If this small brave 16-year-old girl can take it, then certainly I can.

Her lesson is don't let yourself or your family be bullied. I have learned her lesson that she has taught. And it is the lesson I need to  teach my family as well. We all need to stand up. And when attacked stand up taller. I have always said that lessons are learned all through your life. I just learned another one.

And maybe next time someone will prosecute.