BY KAREN GUTKE
The number of stalking incidents on campus has increased steadily this year, and if stalkings continue to rise, 2000 could possibly be the year with the highest number of reported stalking incidents in the past five years, according to police statistics.
From January to March, seven incidents have been reported according to University Police statistics. This amount is the same number of incidents reported for the entire year in 1998 and in 1999.
“This is a problem at BYU. We need to make students more aware of what is going on,” said Lt. Greg Barber, manager of administrative services for University Police.
Stalking involves one person’s obsessive behavior toward another person. The stalker’s actions may be motivated by an intense affection for or an extreme dislike of the victim. It will usually take the form of annoying, threatening or obscene phone calls or letters. The calls may start with one or two a day but can quickly escalate, said Utah Attorney General Jan Graham in an informative pamphlet about stalking.
Victims of stalking can be casual acquaintances, former intimate partners or complete strangers to the subject.
Two incidents were recently reported by two female students. The same young man has been troubling them over the last few months. Each have told him that they are not interested in dating him, but he has continually e-mailed them, called them, asked them out on dates, sent them gifts and on several occasions, followed them.
One victim reported that the subject waited for her to get off work, followed her across campus and then was at her apartment when she got home.
Another time he was sitting at the fountain in front of the Provo LDS Temple waiting for her to come out.
Even though these young women told him that they weren’t interested, he still continued to bother them. Many times stalkers cannot accept that a victim has told them no.
“Often times a victim’s consistent ‘no’ is not enough,” Barber said. “It seems like it takes an officer in uniform to make the message come home for some of these people.”
Barber’s daughter was stalked by a boy in high school. He said he remembers her tears from when she missed her music audition after hiding in the women’s restroom for seven hours because her stalker was standing outside the door and wouldn’t leave. He was a member of the basketball team and she was the statistician. They never went out on a date, but he had decided that she was “his” property would continually call and was verbally abusive. He wouldn’t let anyone sit by her on the bus and would follow her around school.
“The only way that I could get him to leave my daughter alone, was to go to his parent’s house and threaten to report him if he ever bothered my daughter again,” Barber said.
A victim can report their stalker to the police after two or more occasions according to the Stalking Statute of Utah (76-5-106.5 of the Utah Code Annotated).
“Most of the time when I have told the subject to leave the victim alone, they have stopped,” said Sgt. Robert Eyre of the University Police. “We can either give them a physical arrest and take them to jail, or an information arrest where they are summoned to appear in court.”
