Tag Archives: stalking

Standing with the Missing: Tucson Hosts the REDress Project

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Tree at the Piikani Nation, Alberta, Canada. Photo: voyagevixen2

Last year, on March 11, red shirts and dresses filled the Arizona House of Representatives. Activists wore the color in support of HB 2570, a bill introduced by Rep. Jennifer Jermaine, D-Chandler, to address an ongoing crisis in Arizona’s Native American communities.

That crisis, and that visual statement in response to it, is also the theme of the REDress Project, a traveling exhibition by Métis artist Jaime Black, whose work opens at the Tucson Desert Art Museum on January 10. Black, who is based in Winnipeg, Canada, began the project in 2009, collecting and displaying dresses to “call in the energy of the women who are lost.”

Honoring the many lost throughout North America, the REDress Project will be on exhibit at the Tucson Desert Art Museum.

The red of those dresses has become a symbol — and the letters MMIW the shorthand — for missing and murdered indigenous women. In Native American communities, domestic abuse, kidnapping, and other forms of violence have put many victims on difficult paths to justice, often leading nowhere.

Gaps in jurisdiction, especially when the offender isn’t a tribal member, have been one barrier. Non-tribal suspects fall under federal jurisdiction, but a shortage of federal marshals has often meant that they can continue offending with impunity. In a report published last year, the Urban Indian Health Institute found that roughly half of perpetrators in MMIW cases were non-Native. Continue reading →

January Is National Stalking Awareness Month: Amanda’s Story

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man-stalking-womanIt was just after 7 o’clock in the evening during July in Arizona. Translation? The triple-digit heat had barely dipped into the 90s. So why did I feel a chill creeping along my arms? I rubbed them for warmth, but couldn’t shake the queasy prickling sensation. I debated whether fetching my mail at the end of my street was really worth it.

This had become my life. Even the simplest tasks were riddled with fear. Every time my phone alerted me of a text, my heart raced. Every time my dogs barked, I jumped.

I needed to make sure my family would not be a story in the news or a plotline for a Lifetime movie.

A few months prior, I had gotten texts from a random number; these escalated to lewd comments. I downloaded an app to block the number. Then the emails started. I blocked them and every subsequent account this faceless shadow created to reach out to me. Next thing I knew, I was getting anonymous gifts and small PayPal transfers. I ignored them. Twice, my back door was open. Had I just forgotten to close it? When I found a slain chicken strewn across my front lawn, I tried to justify that one must have escaped a nearby farm and been victim to a coyote or other common predator. Then, not even a week later, another one appeared. This shadow wanted me to know that his gift was not just a coincidence.

I had dutifully called the police when I suspected break-ins and had informed them of the obsessive behavior. It wasn’t the first time in my life I was told by authorities, “Well, we can’t do anything unless they hurt you.”

When I came home from an extended weekend away for my job, I was welcomed by a dismembered and headless Barbie doll … on my bed. While disturbing on its own, it was a clear reference to an episode of Dexter I had just watched two days prior. I had been alone and at someone else’s home and had only told my best friend back home in Missouri about the episode. Somehow, someone knew.

That was the moment I came to terms with a very grim fact. I had a stalker. Continue reading →

Book Club: Living in the Crosshairs

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CrosshairsLiving in the Crosshairs is an important and terrifying book that was published last year by Oxford University Press. Its authors are David S. Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who also sits on the boards of the Women’s Law Project and the Abortion Care Network, and Krysten Connon, who graduated from Drexel Law School in 2012, and is now an attorney in Philadelphia. In it, they look at targeted harassment of abortion providers. This is different from the protests we may think of outside abortion clinics, which are aimed at the clinic, or the women seeking abortions, or the issue in general. Targeted threats and attacks are aimed at individuals who work in the clinics. They are personal.

The title comes from a story of one provider’s dealings with the legal authorities. He describes one protest at the clinic where he works, where:

… a new sign displayed Paul’s picture in crosshairs. “I was just shocked that that was legal. I just can’t see how that’s fair.” Paul contacted the FBI about the targeted protest, particularly in light of the sign with the crosshairs. “They said it’s perfectly legal. The protesters could do that, and they could do worse.”

This incident shows the way abortion providers are targeted, literally and figuratively, by anti-abortion activists, and is a representative example of the stories told by the people interviewed for this report. In all, 87 providers were contacted, and 82 of them agreed to be interviewed at length. The authors included doctors, administrators, and other medical and non-medical staff who work where abortions are performed. Non-medical staff are also targets; as the authors point out, of eight providers murdered by anti-abortion killers, four were doctors; the others included two receptionists, a security guard, and a volunteer escort. And more recently, we’ve seen in Colorado Springs that people unrelated to a clinic can also be killed in anti-abortion violence. The danger is great; almost all of those interviewed chose to use false names, and to have details that could identify them changed as well. Continue reading →

National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers

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Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Brittany Sevek, our communications and marketing intern, who is a fourth-year journalism student at Arizona State University.

We are currently in the midst of “40 Days for Life.” Spanning from February 13 through March 24, “40 Days for Life” is a campaign that coincides with the 40 days of Lent. Participants in the campaign protest against abortion, seek to discourage women from having abortions, and even hope to shut down health centers that provide abortion care entirely. At a time like this, when people are openly rallying against the very things Planned Parenthood works to protect, it is important to take a minute to reflect upon and appreciate those who have labored so hard to support women’s rights and maintain access to health care.

We should be able to get health care without fear of violence, harassment, or intimidation.

Another important date in regards to abortion falls within these 40 days: March 10. Many are probably unaware that March 10 is designated as National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers. Established in 1996, National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers was founded to commemorate the life of Dr. David Gunn. Unfortunately, March 10 marks the anniversary of Dr. David Gunn’s 1993 assassination — 20 years ago this Sunday.

Dr. David Gunn was a physician and abortion provider in rural Alabama, and was assassinated in Pensacola, Florida, at an anti-abortion rally. Shot three times in the back, Dr. Gunn was killed by an anti-abortion extremist. Gunn’s death is noted as the first assassination of an abortion provider. Since then, there has been a total of nine murders of abortion providers and other clinic personnel, according to the National Abortion Federation.

Even those who support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions do not generally consider the risks and dangers to which abortion providers are subjected in order to continue providing their services. The National Abortion Federation tracks statistics of acts of violence and disruption against abortion providers. These acts range from murder, attempted murder, death threats, hate mail, stalking, bombing, arson, vandalism, and even acid attacks. In 2001, a record total of 795 acts of violence were committed against abortion providers. These numbers dropped for several years, but spiked again in 2005 when 761 incidents of violence occurred. Thankfully, in recent years this number has dropped dramatically: 2011 saw 113 violent acts committed.

However, this number is still 113 violent acts too many. It is therefore crucial to honor those who put themselves at risk every day. By taking the time on March 10, and every day, to commemorate and recognize these abortion providers for supporting women’s rights, we can raise awareness about this otherwise unspoken issue. In turn, we can continue to diminish these numbers, and hopefully stop such terrible acts of violence from occurring in the future.