Long before the rift opens to suck away your money, time, and sanity, the assumption is an “incident” has occurred to warrant a person’s appearance in court.
Not so.
Following an “incident” through the judicial system is what City Council will be spending three hours doing today after spending three hours last week discussing this “community issue”, which I covered in this post.
Instead of tracking the movement of an incident of “violence” through the court system, today’s post is going to explain how non-criminal civil protection orders can initiate the use of the system itself as the abuser when a “petitioner” is not the kind of “reasonable” person in need of enhanced protection they claim to be.
The video clip I’m going to highlight below explains how intimate partner violence doesn’t have to include any violence at all because it’s all about POWER and CONTROL, something the system itself is also known for. Since this idea of violence is so expansive, the following clip can be applied to an abusive SYSTEM as well, so listen closely to what’s being described:
If you listened closely to the woman defining the experiences of a victim, then you probably heard the word “stalking” used. This word is VERY important because it’s one of those dubious, non-violent actions that an UN-reasonable person can claim to be experiencing when trying to use the system to punish someone and, with stalking, it doesn’t even have to be an intimate partner making the claim. It can be a state legislator OR a former employer, as I have learned the hard way.
Looking at the system itself as an abuser, or women as abusers, shouldn’t be controversial, but, when Gwen Jones stated last week that same sex relationships experience rates of violence that are the same, or higher, than hetero-relationships–yet that fact didn’t show up in the Missoula Current’s reporting–I immediately sensed that this issue was being politicized.
To further back up this assertion, here’s a graphic from today’s Council presentation that emphasizes MALE PRIVILEGE as one of the slices in this pie-graph of POWER and CONTROL:
Is treating a woman like a servant physical violence, sexual violence, or neither? What about making “all the big decisions”, or acting like the “master of the castle”? What kind of violence is that?
Another aspect I find interesting about this pie-graph is the slice that defines “economic abuse” as things like “giving her an allowance”. If I wanted to define my father as being an economic abuser, this slice would come in handy, since he’s used money to control my mother for my entire life. Even now, when mom helps me out by buying me Good Food Store gift cards, she knows that every purchase she makes dings as a notification on my dad’s phone, which he immediately scrutinizes and will interrogate her over if he senses she’s spending too much, or helping me in ways he hasn’t sanctioned.
Returning to the propaganda material, let’s take a look at some of the other visual aids our City Council members will be subjected to during today’s three hour session. As you examine the following slides, remember, using money to control and abuse people is one of the system’s FAVORITE methods of coercion:
Once revenue streams created by acts of Uncle Sam established an economic foundation for this victim industry, the local version now has a great reason to ALWAYS ask for more money (because inflation), and the fact this industry creates more victims is actually seen as a positive sign of empowerment, thus providing a rationale to keep feeding this legal machine and further empower its ability to be PROACTIVE by using non-criminal civil processes to turn any toxic relationship–even non-intimate-partner ones–into opportunities for criminal intervention.
Doesn’t that sound about right, Brandi?
Having just recently become familiar with The Ries Law Group by reporting on the lawfare against Sam Redfern, I wasn’t surprised to see them benefit from this great business opportunity of being platformed by Gwen Jones to appear like noble protectors in furtherance of the law firm’s business model. Good job, ladies!
And good job to EVERYONE who has helped the professional victim who stalked me and harassed my family until I finally cut her out of my life.
And men, yes, this is when the protection order was filed against me.
When I filed a protection order to protect myself and my family from harassment, it was denied the same day. When I filed a police report that this person was secretly recording people’s conversations, even County Attorney’s who refused to charge OTHER MEN she was claiming abused her, nothing happened. When I objected in court to the SUBSTITUTE JUDGE who admitted he had gone to law school with her, it was denied. When I asked for more time to find a lawyer, since CIVIL proceedings don’t provide any legal representation for DEFENDANTS, my request was denied by the judge, the same judge who knew her.
After getting the CIVIL protection order, my petitioner was able to take EVERYTHING that I had previously been doing with my citizen journalism in this community and essentially depict it as STALKING HER. And, even better for her political allies (like Susan Hay Patrick and the legislator I cannot name), if she was in proximity to what I was doing, my presence could be criminalized and prosecuted.
Show up to City Council to make a public comment? Charged with a crime (later dropped by the city).
Show up to the State of the Community speech with an educational display from my urban camp cleanup? Charged with a crime (found guilty after a jury trial).
Show up to a park where Palestinian activists were having an event, then writing about it? Yep, charged with a crime, because that park was within 1,500 feet of the petitioner’s residence.
The latest crime I’m being prosecuted for is being on campus in June to cover the Alani Bankhead press release, a notable political event which I wrote about and, thus, provided the evidence that the County Attorney’s Office will be referencing to claim I have implicated myself in another terrible crime, one that my FIRST petitioner was hoping could be all about her, but, alas, she only gets an assist on this one, since the responding jurisdiction confirmed that her story of my immediate departure indicated I had abided by the constraints still upon me to leave if this person shows up, even if that means walking away from a meal in a restaurant.
Undeterred by this denial, it’s my understanding that Petitioner 1 reached out to Petitioner 2, the state legislator, and together it was determined that a technical violation could be claimed (since campus is covered by one of the 4 Travis Exclusion Zones), and that’s how this citizen journalist once again found himself being prosecuted for his local coverage and activism, which has included a very effective exposure of the Homeless Industrial Complex I was once a part of before becoming homeless myself.
Which brings me to a bullshit book I found some kernels of truth in:
Since the time that I spent homeless has been used against me in civil court proceedings, and since my TOTAL LACK of criminal history prior to my social status changing, and toxic relationship ensuing, means nothing to those depicting me as a dangerous criminal, I have had no choice, over the last THREE YEARS, but to fight back in the limited ways my poverty and pariah status have allowed, with only Daddy’s financial help keeping me from being homeless again.
Most men experiencing lawfare don’t want to talk about it, and many men end up committing suicide as the final solution to make years of harassment stop. The irony, of course, is that even if I wanted to move to another town to lessen my chances of being criminally charged for more violations, I’m once again legally required to be here, which means my chances of running into the person who calls 911 on me every time I am seen existing are high, which means my anxiety never fully abates as I attempt to make it through each day as unscathed as possible.
Before ending today’s post (and continuing to live another day of my “life”), here’s what I would like to see happen: STUDY THE DATA!
More specifically, here’s a series of questions I would be asking about the kind of data I’m thinking of were it me conducting a paid study to define lawfare for State Legislators who can craft a bill to empower DEFENDANTS and give them a better chance to FIGHT BACK against unvetted petitioners with covert political agendas and/or vindictive axes to grind:
How many “Temporary Orders of Protection” (TOPs) are being awarded to petitioner’s in Missoula County? Is that number going up? How many petitioner’s are NOT intimate partners? How many times has “stalking” been used as a justification for those TOPs? Are certain law firms over represented in the use of TOPs? Are non-profits, like the YWCA, compromised by political bias? Are Crime Victim Advocate “investigators” potentially hiding exculpatory evidence from the legal discovery process?
Ultimately I want today’s post to emphasize how educated I’m getting by attending these required classes for my degree at the University of Lawfare. Since I do believe there’s immense value in “lived experience”, anything our local “protectors” throw at me will just make me a smarter, more effective adversary against the use of this insidious tactic, and the casualties I know that exist from its growing power to destroy.
Thanks for reading!