Expert says technology has made stalking easier

Nationwide, 6.6 million people are stalked yearly, but because not every incident is reported, there probably are more victims. Technology has made the offense easier to commit, said Mark Kurkowski, a consultant for the Stalking Resource Center.

Kurkowski, also a detective with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, covered many aspects of stalking Tuesday during "Stalking: Increasing Offender Accountability and Victim Safety" at the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

Kurkowski and Becky Holloway, court advocate for Safe House for Women, presented two sessions Tuesday and will conduct two more today for about 120 law enforcement officers and officials.

The first stalking law went into effect in California in 1990 after a celebrity was killed by her stalker, Kurkowski said. Stalking laws exist in every state nationwide.

"We are looking at stalking as a more serious crime," Kurkowski said. "There's no question about that."

Stalking is conduct directed at a "specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear," according to a fact sheet from the Stalking Resource Center.

Stalking remains a misdemeanor in Missouri. Many times, Kurkowski said, the offender doesn't get more than a year in jail. It becomes a felony when there's an order of protection in place or if the offender makes a credible threat, is on probation, parole or supervised release, he said.

Also, if the victim is younger than 17 and the offender is older than 21, and the offender has been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, misdemeanor stalking, it

becomes a felony, Kurkowski said.

If other crimes are committed in addition to stalking, such as rape, kidnapping or sodomy, an offender will receive harsher penalties, Kurkowski said.

Technology has made it easier for suspects to go after victims. Phones are used most often for calling or texting. Offenders also can change phone numbers shown on caller ID, change their voice and record calls, Kurkowski said. Cellphones also can become listening devices and can be hacked to reveal all calls and track someone with GPS, he said.

Additionally, Kurkowski said, text messages can be faked and using Tigertext allows messages to disappear quickly. Tracking devices typically used by parents to keep tabs on their teens also can be turned on victims, such as SafeTrak, which can unlock doors, enable or disable starters, honk the horn and change speed limits, among other things, he said.

Spyware, hidden cameras, geotagging and social networks also are used by stalkers, Kurkowski said.

Most stalking victims are age 18 to 24. Most are women, with one in six reporting to the Stalking Resource Center in Washington, D.C., that they have been stalked. One in 19 men have reported being stalked.

Using a less-conservative definition of stalking, which considers any amount of fear, the figures change to one in four women and one in 13 men, the Stalking Resource Center information said.

Victims are usually stalked by someone they know. "Sixty-six percent of female victims and 41 percent of male victims of stalking are stalked by a current or former intimate partner. More than half of female victims and more than a third of male victims indicated they were stalked before the age of 25," the information said.

Kurkowski said stalking shares a trait with domestic violence where the offender has to have power and control.

"You can use those individual assault behaviors or incidents as a part of that course of conduct as well. That's how we build that course of conduct to build that stalker [case] against that offender ..." Kurkowski said.

Cape Girardeau Police Department public information officer Darin Hickey provided stalking report numbers for the past four years in an email to the Southeast Missourian. The most -- 11 -- occurred in 2011. There were four instances in 2013, five in 2012 and four in 2010, the email said.

Chris Limbaugh, prosecuting attorney for Cape Girardeau County, said more serious charges commonly associated with stalking and harassment are assault and domestic assault. "It's not uncommon that we see the harassment or stalking occur after a violent crime has been committed, or after an assault has occurred, or after I have filed charges," Limbaugh said.

He added that if the suspect violates his probation, "we then use that stalking or harassing behavior as grounds to revoke their probation."

Kurkowski stressed involving victim advocates to help keep victims safe and hold offenders accountable. Holloway said part of her job includes helping victims keep track of every contact made with the offender to build a case and show its severity.

"We want to look at the big picture of what's occurred in that situation. We just don't want to focus on one or two things," Kurkowski said.

Stalking sometimes can escalate quickly and turn deadly, which is part of the reason he's in Cape Girardeau for the training sessions.

Cape Girardeau Police Detective Darren Estes, who mainly investigates child molestation and child pornography cases, said the training was some of the best he's had in years.

"It was very informative," Estes said. " ... I've had domestic violence training before, but as far as the technology aspect of it and some of the other ways to pursue criminal charges on a suspect versus what we've known in the past, he did a very good job presenting the material. It is something that will be beneficial, I'm sure, in the future when we have this type of case.

" ... I don't know how much it will pertain to my job, but just having that knowledge could help somewhere down the road. But for the patrol guys, I think it's great training for those guys -- the guys that respond to this stuff every day," Estes said.

Kurkowski conducted a training session in 2010 at Southeast Missouri State University. Holloway said Safe House wants to offer annual training such as this for officers.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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