Update on blog harassment part 3

The crazy lady in White Bear Lake Minnesota had her day in court this morning in Ramsey County, and the verdict has hit the news media; there was no delay, it was prompt and it sent a clear message.  Thanks to my blogging friend J-Pete for catching that the news was out, and kindly alerting me.

I'm not sure which is the more serious part of this sentence - the 90 days behind bars, or debarring her from ever returning to her home for the next 4 1/2 years.  This woman appears to be the single mother of a daughter; she has a pet.  Will her boss hold her job while she does another 90 days on top of the 30 she just did?  How does her stuff get moved out, etc.?  Will she sell her house - and what poor unsuspecting neighbors will get her next?  She has to live somewhere.  More to the point --- will THIS be enough to stop her behavior from continuing? OR will she do this again?  The hard core harassers despite incarceration, have been known to continue their illegal conduct even while in the clink.

It will be interesting to see how stalking charges play out in this case.  It is an aspect of the harassment that interests me particularly.  I'll have to keep an eye on this kind of local news to see when those charges are heard in court, and what happens.

I feel badly for the harassed neighbors, especially their children.  I feel very badly for this woman's daughter; living with someone who behaves like this must be a matter of perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some new unacceptable behavior to be expressed, some new disruption to occur to upend home stability.

The people, like this woman going off to jail for harassment, I would bet don't see themselves as bad parents, bad spouses, or bad neighbors.  But despite how they see themselves, I can't imagine these people who engage in this kind of behavior are very nice to those around them.  There seems to be something off, or missing or misfiring, something internal that gets jazzed about trying to make others feel badly, including in this case particularly going after making children miserable.  There is some compassion connection, some empathy capacity that may work intermittently, but that doesn't seem to quite function normally in these people who harass others in comparison to other people.  This behavior seems to be about bullying other people because it builds up some weird sense of power in the harasser.  That sense of power, in my opinion, is an illusion; it really only isolates and alienates the harasser from everyone else, not just their target for that most recent bad act.  Maybe that is what drives them to do the irrational things they do; I don't know, making sense of the nonsensical is beyond me.  But here is the update today on the scandalous crazy lady from White Bear Lake, MN.

The STrib covered it here:

Lori E. Christensen, who is accused of the serial harassment of her neighbors, was sentenced to serve 90 days in the Ramsey County workhouse after she admitted Wednesday that she had violated terms of her probation.
She is to report to jail Monday.
Ramsey County District Judge George Stephenson also told Christensen, 49, that she could not be within a mile of her house at Homewood Place in White Bear Lake, an order that is expected to last at least for the remainder of her probation of about 4 1/2 years.
Her attorney, Gary Wolf, told the judge that Christensen had no intentions of returning to her house.
Last week, Christensen was charged with two counts of aggravated stalking in connection with the recent videotaping and phone calls regarding neighbors Kim and Greg Hoffman. Those charges have not yet been dealt with.
The incidents occurred after Christensen previously served time in the county correctional facility for violating a harassment restraining order obtained two years ago by the Hoffmans.
The two have accused Christensen of repeatedly taunting Kim Hoffman, a recovering alcoholic, with numerous signs that included a handwritten statement, "I saw mommy kissing a Breathalyzer."
Christensen's behavior has generated at least 80 calls to police in the past three years, Police Chief Lynne Bankes said last week.
[by]Anthony Lonetree