I’ve been harassed online by a demented Canadian for over 20 years. He’s still at it, but at a much lower rate, fortunately, but years ago I printed out a couple of months worth of his threats and hatred — it was a stack of hundreds of pages — and plunked it down at my local police station, and told them about the problem. They had no idea what to do.
At the height of the Catholic annoyance with my desecration of a cracker, I was getting death threats every day. I reported them to the police a few times. They shrugged.
I’ve had people send me email with specific, credible threats: they’re going to come to town on such-and-such a day. They have this weapon. They have my home address. They are going to show up at my university office.
The response? Nothing. I’ve given them names and email addresses and IP numbers. No action of any kind is taken, not even sending a warning.
I still get routine threats of maiming and abuse and murder. I’ve given up completely. I know from years of experience that the police will do nothing. I’ve heard every explanation: “It’s just social media,” they say. “Grow a thicker skin.” “We can’t do anything until they actually act.” “It’s free speech.”
I know women who experience far worse, far more often. By comparison to the police, Twitter is a model of friendly, fast-acting responsiveness to abuse and harassment, and if you know anything of Twitter, it’s a scum-sucking friend to every asshole on the internet.
But apparently, I’ve just been doing it wrong. I should have just joined the police.
Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged.
“I know this is a new issue, but I want these people charged with crimes,” said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. “I’ve directed my officers to prepare warrants for these four individuals, and we’ll see which venue is the best to pursue charges,” he said.
The self-serving hypocrisy is breath-taking to anyone who has had to deal with ongoing harassment on social media. For decades I’ve been told that nothing can ever be done about written threats. Suddenly that has changed now that the police are getting the same treatment.
An Illinois woman, Jenesis Reynolds, was arrested for writing in a Facebook post that she would shoot an officer who would pull her over. “I have no problem shooting a cop for simple traffic stop cuz they’d have no problem doing it to me,” she wrote, according to the police investigation. She was charged with disorderly conduct.
In New Jersey, Rolando Medina was arrested and charged with cyber harassment. He allegedly posted on an unidentified form of social media that he would destroy local police headquarters. In Louisiana, Kemonte Gilmore was arrested for an online video where he allegedly threatened a police officer. He was charged with public intimidation.
“Disorderly conduct”? “Public intimidation”? But I’ve been repeatedly told that there is no applicable charge to be made against, for example, someone who has declared that he’s going to shoot me in the head and rape my wife! This is news to me.
This is not to say I think the police should be arresting people who say rude things to me — there are serious civil liberties issues here. The article makes the point that there is legal precedent that sets a very high standard for taking action, which is fine with me.
The policing of online threats is hardly a new issue. The Supreme Court set a precedent last year when it ruled that prosecutors pursuing a charge of communicating threats need to prove both that reasonable people would view the statement as a threat and that the intent was to threaten. Elonis v. United States dealt with a man who had posted violent rap lyrics about his estranged wife; the court reversed his conviction.
The problem, though, is that the police apparently have one standard for action against people who are rude to them, and a very different standard when it comes to the people they are supposed to protect and serve. You can’t say “I have no problem shooting a cop” without being charged with a crime, but you can say “I’m going to murder PZ Myers” with no risk of even a warning.
So fuck the police. They’re worse than useless when it comes to harassment — they’re enablers of every bad behavior, except when it affects their delicate sensitivities.
I should mention, though, that when I brought an email to gun me down in my office, the campus police were concerned, and put up a video camera to monitor my office. The worry was that students were at risk.
Have any bloggers ever been gunned down?
starflletdude, they have been in Bangladesh, yes.
Starfleetdude
Bloggers tend to be murdered more in Bangladesh – http://freethoughtblogs.com/?s=blogger+murdered – but there’s no reason why people need to wait for that one death threat that gets followed up on.
“I know this is a new issue…”
No, it’s not. The Bill of Rights covers it pretty well.
I wonder if the police generally treat conservative Christians who receive similar death threats differently. I don’t know. Are they cavalier just because it’s not them — or it’s not people like them?
ROYGIV lives matter!
So I need to wait for someone to get shot before the police will do anything?
Jeez, but that’s a familiar refrain.
I retract my comments yesterday, save “These are some thin-skinned police
officers[.]”
But again, the Clinton e-mail scandal shows that the powerful will do
everything to punish their helpless enemies (Manning, Assange, Snowden) and
everything to shield themselves (Clinton, Petraeus).
Blatantly unconstitutional arrests for most of them (true threats like PZ has experienced should be prosecuted) – though not really new. Police have arrested people for merely making fun cops and politicians.
“Police Arrest Man on Felony Charges For Fake Facebook Page”
“Man arrested for parodying mayor on Twitter gets $125K in civil lawsuit”
“Cartoonist Who Mocked Police Investigated for “Cyberstalking”
Jesus Christ. And people continue to think we aren’t living in a police state, that cops are mostly the good guys, and they wouldn’t really do anything bad to someone who didn’t deserve it.
“You can’t say “I have no problem shooting a cop” without being charged with a crime, but you can say “I’m going to murder PZ Myers” with no risk of even a warning.”
Actually, it should be the reverse: the first one is not a direct threat to a named individual, and would thus be very hard to prosecute given the 1st amendment, the second one is a direct threat to a specific individual.
And even that specific threat should be hard to prosecute.
I’m just appalled at how easily the police will throw civil liberties under the bus when they’re the threatened ones. Cowards and bullies, they are.
Why don’t you cite these cases next time you go to the station?
You said he’s Canadian? I wonder what the police could do in that case, other than sending the guy a warning that if he actually does show up in Morris they’re going to be waiting for him. Otherwise I suppose they’d have to contact their Canadian counterparts and ask them to do something.
davidnagle @5:
SCOTUS has repeatedly found that certain speech — threats, incitement to violence, child and snuff pornography — are not protected by the United States Constitution. There are very specific criteria, though. Generally, the threats have to be specific, have specific details, and make a very specific threat. The threats agains Dr. Myers do, the ones against police do not.
(I may be misreading you and this is what your comment meant, but (as everyone here will attest) my reading comprehension (especially when clouded by rage and/or cynicism) is sometimes lacking.)
Sorry, I should have added that it’s fucked up in any case that they don’t do something, even if it’s just calling/emailing the guy in question to tell him that they’ve been notified and will be waiting for him if he shows up in your town to come after. How much effort does that actually take on their part?
“So I need to wait for someone to get shot before the police will do anything?”
This isn’t Bangladesh at least, where you likely would get shot. If you were on Facebook I suppose you could get the accounts of those who threaten you tossed, but, Facebook.
Does anyone have experience with restraining orders? Curious what that requires.
@15
Presumably he’s referring to Dennis Markuze, who did get in trouble with the police a little while back (but only after a very substantial number of people contacted the local police)
Last I heard, he just used proxies and violated the court order not to send weird rambly death threats and depeche videos, so ultimately the police intervention wasn’t successful.
I remember that particular obsessive Canadian… wasn’t the only reason any action was ever taken on him because he accidentally added the Montreal Police chief to his harassment list or something?
Brother Ogvorbis, I was thinking about the “Micah Johnson is a hero” comment generating an arrest, and partly pissed about the whole obfuscation of “this is on the internet, so it’s new and strange and we can do what we want because of that” justification.
As another example, look at how police handle protesters around abortion clinics with how some police departments handle protests against themselves or powerful groups.
That said, I do think praising specific departments and contrasting them with others is a useful tactic. Before the shooting, the Dallas police had just finished a great job of supporting a hastily scheduled protest that didn’t have time to get the proper permit to march in the street. Rather than find excuses to attack people, they enabled people to speak – even amplifying their message on Dallas owned social media. They escorted the march through the streets and rerouted traffic. You couldn’t find a more polar opposite to the flagrantly illegal assault on people by the Baton Rouge police. We need cops like the Cleveland officer whose rebuke of racist police went viral.
@21
I think there was a thing where he had accidentally tagged the Montreal police in his twitter death threats, but there was also a huge social media campaign in the Skeptic community that also played a part.
Well, if you were a sports figure or a hollywood figure or a congressperson or any other fully-vested member of the oligarchy, then you’d get service.
The cops aren’t there for ordinary people.
Starfleetdude — a very well known (Top 10 Liberal Blog for the better part of a decade) blogger was firebombed, and forced to change his name and flee to another country…nice place, up north a ways. And it’s sorta weird, isn’t it, the way that men who threaten their wives via phone calls and e-mails and social media, then end up killing them, and the police act surprised, despite having been begged for protection by the wife or girlfriend multiple times. You’ve heard of that, haven’t you? Women who were repeatedly threatened then getting murdered? Gunned down, as you say. In America.
“So fuck the police.”
It’ll be interesting to see if you get arrested for advocating on social media sexual assault and rape against the police!
It would be fun to see what happened if you sent the exact same threats to the Chief of Police. I have a feeling these legal threats would become illegal pretty quickly.
anbheal, there’s a long history of verbal abuse and assault of women by their partners, and the police do take that seriously. That’s why I was curious earlier about verbal threats to bloggers being followed up by violence. I’m guessing the blogger you mentioned who was firebombed got threats too. I don’t believe violence to bloggers matches the level of violence that many women have been subjected to though.
Hahahaha.. you think police take women seriously. Try the next one, it’s got bells on.
Rowan, the police can help and do make a difference, but yes, sometimes they don’t. Here’s something from the ACLU on the subject.
https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/womensrights/protectiveorders.pdf
Only Blue Lives Matter
I see some dudesplaining going on.
starfleetdude @ 29:
Excuse me, but just what planet did you get that fucking idea from? Women end up dead, every single day, because they were ignored by cops. Women end up dead, every single day, because begging authorities to take abuse, assault, and threats seriously is handwaved. Women are not considered to be credible. Women are often assumed to be lying, or at the very least, seriously exaggerating. I could go on, but apparently, you’re on a very different planet from this one.
Starfeetdude, quit dudesplainin’. There is a reason why police don’t take complaints of women against their partners seriously.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-beat-wives-girlfriends-double-national-rate-receive-promotions/
http://womenandpolicing.com/violencefs.asp
Plenty more where that came from.
Women should not trust the police to protect them.
Can we pretty fucking please stop repeating the myth that outlawing explicit and credible threats of criminal violence would in any way impede “free speech?”
Usually I would consider threats against police and other state officials to be more severe than threats against a single individual. But the disparity in the level of protection they seems to receive is an offense to the public.
I could see a very interesting campaign where ignored threats that lead to an assault were sent to persons on the police departments. By their own standards there was nothing they could do about it. The trouble would be getting volunteers who are willing to risk ending up in jail…
“Free speech” is so absolute it includes respecting my right to threaten and bully you away from your “free speech”.
I did a post today about facebook rants. An emmy winning photographer/producer was fired for what he had to say about black people. I wonder* if the cops will pay him a visit, or if these social media arrests are only applicable to people of colour who say rude things about cops.
*Not actually wondering. I know that threats and rude bigotry towards people of colour will get a pass by cops.
Meanwhile, the sun rose today…
To put it rudely, unless you’re rich enough to unleash a barrage of lawyers at the miscreant, the police won’t give a shit. All they care is to protect the status quo where the rightful leaders of society are rich white men.
Man, I could just murder a box of donuts right now …
Uh oh!
You need a thicker skin, PZ, if you think credible and specific threats are worse than lèse majesté.
I forget who said it — probably Mencken? — but if you want to know who your rulers are, just ask who you’re not allowed to criticize.
ah, the police go-to for doing anything they fucking want since at least 1960!
want to change police behavior fast?
get your legislator to introduce a bill to remove the ability of police to charge you with “disorderly conduct”.
it’s always been a bullshit charge.
,,,laughably, even the WIKI article on disorderly conduct uses a first definition of it as circular!
“A circular definition of disorderly conduct defines the offense in these ways:”
you know it’s bad when at the very start, the only ways of defining the law are circular in nature.
honest question…
why?
no. the correct word is “can” there, not “do”
they CAN take that seriously, and we all know this.
but most often they DO NOT.
Mexico too:
http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/mexico-blogger/#E.CigxKFJSqh
also long standing reports of bloggers being “disappeared” in Russia.
probably China as well.
but since they aren’t “dead” it doesn’t count I guess.
evidently in France, you’re more likely to get stabbed by an outraged internetter.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/video-gamer-hunts-stabs-man-killed-online-counter-strike-character-article-1.447608
…and for those hoping for help in upholding convictions for threats under federal statute?
don’t count on SCOTUS for that help. They shot down the idea of internet threats as convictable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonis_v._United_States
so, this is gonna get worse before it gets better.
HappyHead,
Yeah, I was about the say the Mabus case is the perfect example of what this post is talking about. For years he sent death threats to people in the atheist/skeptic community. For years, people contacted the Montreal Police and they did nothing. After he started threatening the Montreal Police themselves, they immediately opened an investigation and arrested him about than a week later.
You can read about the case here. (Some may say they acted because of the overwhelming response on Twitter. Even if this is the case, they only acted after it started inconveniencing them.)
Ichthyic @ 50, Elonis only requires a different jury instruction – it does nothing to bar prosecution for a true threat over the Internet. In fact, the opinion makes clear that such threats can be prosecuted. The problem, as PZ noted, is enforcing the law not the law itself.
uh, it overturned the conviction.. you caught that part, right?
the defendant won, not the government.
the precedent it sets is pretty clear.
@Ichthyic #46:
Because they (hopefully) represent an important function in society. A threat against a police officer is a threat against law and order. But in this case their version of law and order is a threat to public safety…
So a few months ago, PZ posted something – maybe in relation to Deepak or The Secret – where he mentioned envisioning a nice bowl of tomato soup so of course one would appear. I was briefly ready to put a packet of tomato soup mix in the post to him as a joke (the address was easy to find), then remembered some of that Markuze crap. Trolls mean you can’t even have fun with the mail any more…
Of course, by the logic of that original post, my envisioning of sending him a packet of soup mix meant that he should have received it whether or not I actually sent it…
The new album from Pee-Zee
“Flunk da Police”
@Ichthyic, that no more means that internet threats are legal than Miranda means that rape is legal.