In service of clear epistemics, I want to flag that the “horror stories” that your are sharing are very open to interpretation. If someone pressured someone else, what does that really mean? If could be a very professional and calm piece of advice, or it could be a repulsive piece of manipulation. Is feeling harassed a state that allows someone to press charges, rather than actual occurrence of harassment? (of course, I also understand that due to privacy and mob mentality, you probably don’t want to share all the details; totally understandable.)
So maybe these really are scenarios in which the community health team dropped the ball. But maybe they aren’t. And the snippets shared here aren’t enough for me to have confidence in either of those interpretations. I guess I mainly want to remind readers to not pass judgement based on tiny snippets of narratives.
I don’t know anything about the case above, but I don’t actually think it is that strong evidence? About a decade ago, our landlord got a harassment prevention restraining order issued against one of our housemates. The problem was, our landlord was schizophrenic (and unmedicated) and everything they wrote to the judge was hallucinated. My impression is that, at least in Massachusetts, the justice system has a relatively low bar for issuing these?
(In a follow-up, we were able to all get reciprocal orders put in place)
Seconding this:
In my city, A TRO (temporary restraining order) is very easy to get:
“If the judge is convinced that a temporary restraining order is necessary*, he or she may issue the order immediately, without informing the other parties and without holding a hearing.”
*IMO, local judges are very lenient with TROs, issuing them “just in case” the complaint is valid, and reserving more conservative judgements for the actual hearing, 14+ days later.
I don’t think EAs have any particular edge in managing harassment over the police, and I find it troublesome that they have far higher standards for creating safe spaces, specially in situations where the cost is relatively low such as inviting the affected members to separate EAG events while things cool down.
On another point, I don’t think this was Jeff’s intention, but I really dislike the unintentional parallel between an untreated schizophrenic and the CB who asked for the restraining order. I can assure you that this was not the case here, and I think the CB was sound of mind and fully justified in requesting it.
Whether it is easy to get a restraining order, IDK man. It is “easy” in the sense that there is a same-day procedure that only requires interrogating the requester. At least in the jurisdiction where this happened, it is also a gruelling process which requires you to consistently repeat your story to many police officials who keep asking you for details and are looking for contradictions, and takes a full work day to complete.
I was responding specifically to the claim that hearing that a restraining order has been granted is very informative. I didn’t claim that getting one is easy or hard, or that the community health team should have higher or lower thresholds for action.
I’m also not trying to say anything either way about the community builder in question, and don’t know any more about that situation than I’ve read in this thread. And specifically, I’m not saying that they are mentally ill or made a report based on hallucinations. Instead, what I’m saying is that because the decision to grant a restraining order is not the product of an investigative process and the amount of evidence necessary is relatively low, learning that one has been granted doesn’t provide much evidence.
EDIT: based on on a comment from Jeff Kaufman, I am now somewhat less confident that a restraining order is strong evidence of harassment actually having occurred. I know practically nothing of the legalities of harassment and restraining orders, so I advice any readers to not consider my opinions on this topic very heavily.
In service of clear epistemics, I want to flag that the “horror stories” that your are sharing are very open to interpretation. If someone pressured someone else, what does that really mean? If could be a very professional and calm piece of advice, or it could be a repulsive piece of manipulation. Is feeling harassed a state that allows someone to press charges, rather than actual occurrence of harassment? (of course, I also understand that due to privacy and mob mentality, you probably don’t want to share all the details; totally understandable.)
So maybe these really are scenarios in which the community health team dropped the ball. But maybe they aren’t. And the snippets shared here aren’t enough for me to have confidence in either of those interpretations. I guess I mainly want to remind readers to not pass judgement based on tiny snippets of narratives.
In terms of 2) and 3), a restraining order being granted is decent evidence that someone didn’t just mistakenly feel harassed.
I don’t know anything about the case above, but I don’t actually think it is that strong evidence? About a decade ago, our landlord got a harassment prevention restraining order issued against one of our housemates. The problem was, our landlord was schizophrenic (and unmedicated) and everything they wrote to the judge was hallucinated. My impression is that, at least in Massachusetts, the justice system has a relatively low bar for issuing these?
(In a follow-up, we were able to all get reciprocal orders put in place)
(Disclosure: married to a CH team member)
Seconding this: In my city, A TRO (temporary restraining order) is very easy to get:
“If the judge is convinced that a temporary restraining order is necessary*, he or she may issue the order immediately, without informing the other parties and without holding a hearing.”
*IMO, local judges are very lenient with TROs, issuing them “just in case” the complaint is valid, and reserving more conservative judgements for the actual hearing, 14+ days later.
That surprises me. Maybe I was just flat-out wrong!
I don’t think EAs have any particular edge in managing harassment over the police, and I find it troublesome that they have far higher standards for creating safe spaces, specially in situations where the cost is relatively low such as inviting the affected members to separate EAG events while things cool down.
On another point, I don’t think this was Jeff’s intention, but I really dislike the unintentional parallel between an untreated schizophrenic and the CB who asked for the restraining order. I can assure you that this was not the case here, and I think the CB was sound of mind and fully justified in requesting it.
Whether it is easy to get a restraining order, IDK man. It is “easy” in the sense that there is a same-day procedure that only requires interrogating the requester. At least in the jurisdiction where this happened, it is also a gruelling process which requires you to consistently repeat your story to many police officials who keep asking you for details and are looking for contradictions, and takes a full work day to complete.
I was responding specifically to the claim that hearing that a restraining order has been granted is very informative. I didn’t claim that getting one is easy or hard, or that the community health team should have higher or lower thresholds for action.
I’m also not trying to say anything either way about the community builder in question, and don’t know any more about that situation than I’ve read in this thread. And specifically, I’m not saying that they are mentally ill or made a report based on hallucinations. Instead, what I’m saying is that because the decision to grant a restraining order is not the product of an investigative process and the amount of evidence necessary is relatively low, learning that one has been granted doesn’t provide much evidence.
Agreed.
EDIT: based on on a comment from Jeff Kaufman, I am now somewhat less confident that a restraining order is strong evidence of harassment actually having occurred. I know practically nothing of the legalities of harassment and restraining orders, so I advice any readers to not consider my opinions on this topic very heavily.