4 Aug 2000

Keith Henson <hkhenson@netcom3.netcom.com>

Well, my day began with calling "911." Not my favorite way to start the day. The same a__hole who followed me from work to home a couple of pickets ago (funny way to measure time) was in front of my house this morning. As I usually do with picketers to document their presence (I was asked at deposition if I had any proof that I had been picketed), I photographed him as I left the house to catch the train to work. (I photographed 2 others yesterday.)

This picketer always natters at me, trying to get a rise out of me. I nearly answered him once as he followed me across the street, picket sign and all. (He mentioned something about "bullshit," and I almost said that he should know all about that stuff.) I didn't call "911" until he had followed me for a full block. Then I got out my cell phone and called them, told them "A man is following me," where I was, and they connected me to the Palo Alto dispatch. There was a police car at El Camino, so they dispatched that one (and 2 others as it turned out). He continued to try to get me to turn around and look at his sign, asking, "You think this is fun?" etc., and didn't the sight of his sign "bother" me, and on and on, constant annoying patter.

I said nothing except into the phone to the dispatchers. He waited while I went into the post office to pick up mail, then followed me again and spat the usual hatred at me as I continued to the train, still on the phone to the dispatcher. She said the police officer was coming, and did I see one. At that point I was almost across Park, the street the station is on. I realized when I got to the bicycle lane almost at the sidewalk that I had forgotten to mail an envelope I had brought from home, so I turned around. He was still 2 steps behind me, as he had been all the way, nearly treading on my heels.

As I looked back, I saw the policeman coming toward us. I'm sure he could clearly see the picketer following me. I turned around and walked back across the street toward the policeman. When I was standing in front of the policeman I told the dispatcher that he was there and should I hang up. She said yes and I hung up. As the police officer started talking with the picketer, I continued on to the mailbox and dumped in my envelope, then turned around again and walked past the police officer.

The policeman's first words to the picketer were something like "Hey, would you give us all a break? There are such things as stalking laws on the books." As the officer detained the picketer, I said, "Thank you, officer," and continued on my way to the train. I had told Dispatch that I had to catch a train. She has my cell phone number and address, and of course the Palo Alto Police Department is very familiar with our case, so they will have no problem reaching me if they need me.

The police officer's voice revealed his exasperation as he talked to the picketer. As I went to cross Park again, another officer drove up, this time in his car (the other had been on foot). He asked whether I was the person who called. By this time I was resigned to missing my train, so I stopped and said I was. I told him the other officer was talking with the stalker. He detained me long enough to call and be sure that they had any information they needed, then let me go--only to find myself in the path of another police car that was driving up beside the first. I smiled and went on.

I even caught the train. Actually, except for the "adrenalin" rush--something I will never understand as an attractive force for domesticated primates, who seem to like roller coasters and other forms of glandular excitement--I suppose it wasn't a bad morning in all. I caught my train. The police were actually helpful for a change. (Usually they blow us off--oh the $-ologists aren't doing anything illegal, we need overt threats, it would be entrapment to follow us and catch their PIs driving carelessly to stay on our bumper, oh they can't tell us if those are PIs or stalkers; they turn their backs and walk away). I might call later and see if I can press charges, but I don't think one incident is enough to file charges. At least this generated Police Reort #1. If there is Police Report #2, I will file charges. It's clear that they are using the excuse of picketing, exercising free speech, to come into contact with me, as I come and go from my home, and harass me.

The postmaster was coming from the Park direction as I was going back that way, and seemed concerned. He may also have called the police, I don't know. He asked me where the guy was, and I said a police officer had detained him back down the block. He stopped where the officer was, but by that time I was talking with officer #2 and could barely see the postmaster, much less the picketer and officer #1, who had stopped just off the sidewalk on the walkway into Mollie Stone's grocery store (next to the post office on Cambridge, one of the streets where the $-ologists have posted their ugly hate literature about Keith).

Amazing, isn't it, how they continually practice reversal, calling us the hatemongers, when they are the ones who are full of hatred, spite and poison that they spit at us as much and as often as they dare, and physically attack us when they dare. The public doesn't seem to care because we are not an identifiable ethnic group, just a community of people who recognized evil when we saw it. I wasn't part of that community until they singled me out for their hatred, and then I had no choice but to join it. (I certainly wouldn't consider joining *them*!) I'm reminded of Jewish people who didn't even know they could be considered Jewish until they were forced to wear cloth badges. Of course the $-ologists would exterminate us if they could.

--Arel, Stalked in Palo Alto