Tag Archives: take stalking seriously

Is there Danger in the Roaring Fork Valley?

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peoniasThere is beauty everywhere you look in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado.  Nature is all around, but nature is not the cause of the danger.  The danger is caused by the lack of communication between victims and law enforcement.  Danger because things are not shared with the community.  Danger because of the lack of proper stalking protocol, danger to innocent people because stalking is not being taken seriously.  I would think after what happened to our 20 year old daughter Morgan, that the Garfield County Sheriff would rethink his policies and protocol, but it doesn’t seem like that has happened.  Nothing has changed, we are no longer living there, but I am still being contacted by people that do live there, are currently being stalked, and their cases are being treated the same way as Morgan’s case was treated.

Your elected officials need to know that you’re expecting them to protect, and defend your families and homes, they are supposed to work for you.  They need to know that their job is more than having their officers hand out tickets and fines.  When there is serious crime they need to have officers on their force that have been trained to deal with these situations, situations like kidnapping, rape, sexual assaults against children, stalking, and murder.  And yes, these things do happen in Garfield County, but people usually just don’t get to hear about them.  These are serious situations that happen there, and if there isn’t enough trained officers then they need to bring in another agency to assist, but DO NOT ignore serious crime, DO NOT sweep it under the rug and pretend it is not happening, DO NOT tell the victims and co-victims that there is not enough evidence – have trained law enforcement agents that know how to do an interview, know how to look for evidence, DO NOT just collect salaries to protect and serve and then just do the very least possible, leaving the citizens of your town or county to fend for themselves…there is a reason this is no longer the wild west, there is a reason we have law enforcement – law enforcement is supposed to serve and protect.

Morgan’s felony stalking detective came over for about an hour, once a week, most weeks, and would discuss tactics going forward that he wanted to implement in order to catch her stalker and make an arrest, but then those tactics were never employed – why?  Over and over again he would tell us he could not get approval for any additional hours, so instead of bringing in the dogs to track the stalker in the middle of the night as discussed, instead of doing a stake-out for more than an hour and a half on only one night in 4 months, instead of having batteries in their cameras that actually worked, instead of finding out where their suspect really lived and going there to interview him, instead of putting the suspect under surveillance (and I could go on and on, but won’t), why are they able to afford to put an officer less than a 1/2 mile from our house for 6 hours straight to catch speeders, but could not allocate time for a felony stalking that ultimately ended in a death…someone please tell me how this is even remotely sane, or logical?  Stalking protocol in places like Garfield County need to change, and they need to change now for everyone’s sake!

Right at this very moment there is a victim of stalking in the Roaring Fork Valley (yes, right where Morgan was stalked and killed).  She is scared for her life, and the life of her child.  Her stalker has done this before, he has stalked and kidnapped a former girlfriend, he did jail time for that, and has now been bonded out on this current stalking charge. These are repeat offenders.  They do not stop – the most they do is move on to another target.  At least this victim has a protection order, and if he is caught he should go back to jail.  But the key here is the word “caught” in order to be “caught” there needs to be something in place that will work, and currently there is nothing.

We need law enforcement to have early and effective risk identification, assessment and management to keep victims safe, and hold perpetrators accountable.  Take stalking seriously, speak with the victims, help implement protection orders, and inform the victims of their rights.

Change can, and will be made, and it will come about through the efforts of everyday people who love their families, want them to live a safe life, these are the people that will make this a better world, they will be the ones to change everything…everyday people like you and I.

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For indeed, that’s all who ever have – Margaret Mead

 

 

October 14, 2011 – Day 74 of Morgan’s Stalking – Crank up the Coconut Telegraph Line…

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Wylah looking up to mom

At 9:30 in the morning Morgan texts with a friend who was heading into Aspen, and wanted company, but Morgan had a jazz class and couldn’t go with her so they made plans to meet later that afternoon at a coffee shop.

Our neighbor Elliott suddenly wants to talk with me, he has news.  We had not talked about the stalking in quite a while. It had reached a point where Steve said from what I was telling him, that it was a one way flow of information, Elliott was always wanting to know how the stalking investigation was going, which I would bring him up to date on, and then Elliott never really had any new information except another rumor that always came via Brooke Harris’ mother, Christina Harris.  Steve had reached a point that unless someone had real intel we should not be sharing what we know any longer. I had agreed, so with Elliott I had just avoided him. But this seemed too promising.

We meet out front, as he was walking his dogs. The first news was that Elliott heard from Brooke’s mom that Brooke and Keenan had broken up and Keenan moved out of Brooke’s dad’s house. He wondered if it had been quieter lately. I tell him that, yes as a matter of fact, it has been quiet, silent even, Morgan seems to have this feeling lately that somehow it was over. I didn’t know what to make of it, but now it made sense.

Elliott says this is great, and then he said something that was out of place enough to become locked in my memory. “Yeah, ever since the detectives have been coming around more often they freaked out.”

I immediately ask him who he means by, “they.”  Elliot changed the subject. Telling me how glad he was that Keenan was gone, and now everything could get back to normal. Which only added to my need to know and my attention was piqued, so I again asked him, “Elliott, what did you mean by they?”

He again tried to change the subject by asking what we had caught on the video cameras, and launched into an explanation about how he’s been extra careful lately because he walks his dogs at night sometimes, and he doesn’t want to get caught on camera, and have us think he is the stalker. His nervous laugh sent shivers up my spine, and I will never forget it.

I thought for a moment, not concerned at all about the awkward silence. We had not talked to anyone about the detectives. Only to ask permission from Rhonda to use one of her trees in case they wanted to mount one of their cameras in it. They used bolts to put them up for extra security, and Rhonda was absolutely fine with it. Anything that will catch the stalker, she had said and was still looking to talking to them about things she had noticed anyway.

I told Ellliott we hadn’t really had a chance to talk to anyone about the detectives yet, we were all so busy and they were sort of putting together a game plan. But as soon as we had one I assured E we would talk about it, that we would probably want him to be a part of it. I told him I guessed it was up to the detectives from here, how they wanted to proceed and all.

Elliott did not stop surprising me. He then told me, “Toni, its kind of obvious, first it was deputy trucks at all hours of the night, two and three at a time, and now all of a sudden it’s detectives, everyone is talking about it.”

I wanted to ask him who “everyone” was, but I still had not gotten answer to who they were, so I paused again. The detective’s truck was nondescript.  It said nothing on it, I thought about it, and to me I would not even know it was a Garfield Sheriff’s vehicle.

Elliott suddenly remembered a phone call he had to make, and our little conversation was over.

I called Steve as soon as I was in the house and he was amazed, he also had his hands full and said as soon as he could he would break free so we could talk about it. He also cautioned me to make sure the windows were closed if I talked about this with anyone on the phone today.  He knew me so well – my voice carries.

As soon as Steve came home it was obvious this had been on his mind since I talked to him.  Before we even said anything he was telling me about Detective Glassmire’s truck.  It might have county plates on it?  I’m not sure.  And he said maybe there were the pull you over lights, but they are behind the grill. If that truck passes you on the highway, you might think, oh yeah sheriff, but you would not be sure.  He wondered how it was common knowledge around the neighborhood.  He wondered if they had canvassed, gone door to door asking a few questions, and not told us about it.  He surmised that would put the buzz into high gear.

Then he was talking about the other detective’s car.  He was pretty sure it was a silver SUV, small, an Explorer, once again not certain of the plates. He compared it to one of my friend’s car (a friend of mine that stops by, while on errands, from time to time). Steve said they park in the same place, in fact right behind the same tree, slightly pulled off the street. He thought you would have to be very observant to detect the difference.

Steve had a conclusion, he was now certain and it would seem that it has to be someone who lived in the neighborhood – at least one of them. I told him I thought we were already sure of that. He had a more global outlook.  Until we are 100% certain then we are not really certain of anything.  We have to avoid the trap of becoming locked in on one person and miss another.  Many times Steve had said he not only wants it over, but he wants to know that when it is over it is really over.

Together we arrived at one thing, obviously Elliott knows more than he is telling. After that it was all guesswork – all good stuff for the detectives.

This said something to Morgan

At 8:09 pm I text Morgan and ask, “Are you in Aspen? Everything OK? Tell Paul I said hi. ”I want so badly to tell her that Keenan has moved out, but we have already decided to tell her in person, we are trusting everything less these days and are concerned about our phones, Steve has checked Morgan’s out and looked for some spike you can see in the data usage. So far it looks normal, but he still wanted me to be more vague when I sent a text message.

Morgan answered, “Yes. Yes. Ok.” With a smiley face icon. I sent her, “Short and Sweet.” With another smiley face icon. And Morgan answered, “Coming home soon with Danny, won’t be long.” I thought oopsie, so much for vague, and I ended with “Great.”

About 10:00 pm a man showed up at the front door with a very pregnant woman at his side.  Steve walked out and talked with them. When he came back in I asked him what that was about.  He said right street, just wrong house, and winked at me.  I knew what he meant and just shook my head.

Click here to read about the 75th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=1670

Instead of implementing the suggested national protocol (cost $0) to stop stalkers, did our Sheriff really buy a tank for $400,000? And it sits in an underground parking structure somewhere?

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This article is about our Sheriff – yes the same one that  said he will never reopen Morgan’s investigation – but he can justify his tank!
America’s most in-demand police vehicle is a 10-officer 16,000-pound armored tank that takes bullets like Superman and drives 80 mph. The federal government buys dozens each year for local police departments. Do America’s local police need tanks?

Published Time: Friday, March 4, 2011 at 11:39pm
And while I would agree that there” is no price tag you can put on the life of a police officer who is out there protecting you” what price tag was placed on the life of our daughter Morgan Jennifer Ingram?