Antidote for a Stalker by Mike Proctor

Mike Proctor is a retired police detective who specialized in stalking and harassment cases. It was a difficult specialty for a long time, because as he stresses in the first chapter, the laws were very unclear. For all those of you who saw Cape Fear (the original and remake) you will know how a stalker can drive the victims crazy. Proctor doesn’t sensationalize anything, however. He gives lots of case studies and examples of how the stalker can be a stranger or someone close to the victim. But according to him, all stalkers obsess about their targets and they’re all capable of inflicting injury. Worse, the stalkers rarely know when to quit and they are almost impossible to scare off.

Proctor also discusses the type of victims that the stalkers target. If the stalker is an estranged husband, it’s a case of battered woman syndrome (like it was with OJ Simpson.) He’s not entirely sympathetic to all victims, as in the chapter on paparazzi, who use GPS to track their celebrity targets. “They are their own worst enemy,” he writes, since they use Twitter to tell everyone where they’ll be and when.

I’m surprised that Proctor had to self-publish this book through Createspace, because this is a great comprehensive study on stalking. He’s right in that the law is part of the problem when it comes to prosecution; the code is so unclear that the police aren’t sure what to do. Is the stalker just being funny? Are the obscene photos just a prank? Does a full year of annoying prank calls, each one a misdemeanor, amount to a felony? If the stalker places ads in your name listing your home for sale, your car for sale, or takes out a subscription to violent porno in your name, what crime does that constitute?

I applaud Detective Proctor for writing this book. In the end, the only way to keep yourself safe is to safeguard your privacy. Don’t put your address on your iPhone GPS, just use a nearby park to direct you home. Don’t put your personal schedule on your Facebook page, because that will
help your stalker follow you. If you’re a celebrity, safeguard your privacy (like Bob Dylan and Meg White), and don’t parade your kids in front of the media (at least not as much as Angelina Jolie does.)

This book may one day become a staple for detectives worldwide. I await Proctor’s next book, which I hope will focus more on social media bullying.