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How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

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Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did they do besides doxing him and confronting him online that helped? None of their 'let's catch him' antics were helpful and were actually stupid.

They got a vehicle identified and a confession leading to an arrest. Did we read the same article?

The confession was online, and they already had the vehicle ID (written down initially and then confirmed on camera). Don't be patronizing please. Hiding out in the car did nothing that they couldn't have done with cameras, without risking violent confrontation and a high speed chase.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#112
post #89

These kinds of loons are far too common. I've wiped out most of my online presence that links to my real identity because of this. I'm not worried about big tech and advertisers getting my data, they just want to make money. I'm worried about insane individuals like this. You have to be proactive and avoid posting this stuff in public to begin with as it's much harder or impossible to retract what you have already po…

People don’t talk about this enough. Public profiles are a huge surface area for whack jobs (or extortionists) to attack your career, relationships and reputation.

It's the kind of thing you don't think about until something happens, and when it does it's too late.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#114
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also found the formulations off-putting, e.g. repeating how lucky it is for a girl to have brothers (emphasis on their gender). Or how they felt the need to explain specifically to the male readers why the sister was concerned by what's going on. I am a man and I would be scared shitless if some weirdo was breaking eggs on my car. The author probably just didn't realize this angle, I doubt he meant it in a bad way.

I am sure he didn't mean it in a bad way, but that doesn't mean that emphasis on gender like that isn't problematic. I specifically am referencing the multiple spots where it is highly implied that the brothers were there to rescue her and that she was completely naive otherwise and would have been helpless without them. The fact that they were in the business of online security was what specifically helped her, and…

Why do you have to neutralize them into ‘people close to her’? They are her brothers. Call it like it is. Every brother-sister relationship I’ve known is distinctly different than brother-brother or sister-sister relationships.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#115
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're curious, I recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It busts a lot of myths and gives a good explanation of what abusers get out of their behavior. One important myth is, "He can't control himself". E.g., he's not good at managing anger, so he needs classes. But it turns out a lot of abusive people are perfectly good at managing their anger except when the ta…

I just wanted to second the reading recommendation. Recently started reading it and wow, it is good.

Thirding it. I have been near several abusive relationships in my life and it really opened my eyes to the power dynamics that were invisible from the outside.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#116
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're curious, I recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It busts a lot of myths and gives a good explanation of what abusers get out of their behavior. One important myth is, "He can't control himself". E.g., he's not good at managing anger, so he needs classes. But it turns out a lot of abusive people are perfectly good at managing their anger except when the ta…

> He can't control himself I think the thing that would shock many people is that abusers have often adopted methods of harm and subjugation that they internalized and came to consider normal, justified, and correct. They're executing from a place of intent and necessity, not chaos. They witness themselves doing it from a wildly different perspective than those around them would, and they may think the worst thing th…

Very well put, and I agree. It's usually not a difference of mental health; it's a difference of values.

One of the wild things to me, though, is the doublethink. It's true that if you ask them, they'll often say it was justified. But on the other hand, they generally know to save the worst of it until they can't be observed by outsiders. They're usually quite canny about presenting a non-abusive face to the world. So there's an important sense in which they know what they're doing is wrong.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#117
post #18
post #3

Maybe obvious, but uh: don’t fucking do this! I get it, I'm an older brother, I would wanna go ballistic too. But the fact that these guys skipped over "notify the police" and went straight to "seek out in-person confrontation" is insane! Stalkers are not people in their right mind. Staking out and planning to “citizen’s arrest”(???) someone who has repeatedly visited late at night to threaten and harass is NOT SAFE…

Hi, Where I live the police won't get seriously involved unless someone is injured or dead. I prefer not to wait that long.

I’m not sure if this is a regional thing; police are like this just about everywhere. In my region, most of the people in my community have all stopped calling the emergency services line to report crimes in progress because the dispatch yells and screams and berates the callers. There’s a Facebook group for my local town with dozens of people who say they don’t call anymore because of this. At some point, the police transitioned from preventing and fighting crime to arguing in court that they don’t have the duty to protect. Not sure how it happened or why, but it’s making things worse. Many people no longer see the police as part of the local community but as an organized gang that terrorizes people for small infractions while ignoring major crimes in progress. No amount of patriotism, flag waving, or bumper stickers can change this perception.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wanted to second the reading recommendation. Recently started reading it and wow, it is good.

Thirding it. I have been near several abusive relationships in my life and it really opened my eyes to the power dynamics that were invisible from the outside.

For sure. And it's not just useful to me in a domestic context. I once got a new boss. After my second meeting with him, during which he spent most of it berating me, I thought, "That sounds familiar." So I got out my copy, turned to the chapter on abuser subtypes, and saw that he had already hit most of the checklist for the "Mr Right" abuser type.

It was very helpful to know what I was caught up in; otherwise I could have easily blamed myself or just felt at sea.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got a vehicle identified and a confession leading to an arrest. Did we read the same article?

The confession was online, and they already had the vehicle ID (written down initially and then confirmed on camera). Don't be patronizing please. Hiding out in the car did nothing that they couldn't have done with cameras, without risking violent confrontation and a high speed chase.

You asked "What did they do besides doxing him and confronting him online that helped?"

> The confession was online

The confession was made possible via their "antics", because he knew he'd been caught. Without the experience of being cornered and having to escape, he'd have likely ignored the message as a fishing expedition.

> they already had the vehicle ID

Getting that was part of their "antics", yes.

Re: How we turned the tables to catch my sister’s Bumble stalker

#120

These kinds of loons are far too common. I've wiped out most of my online presence that links to my real identity because of this. I'm not worried about big tech and advertisers getting my data, they just want to make money. I'm worried about insane individuals like this. You have to be proactive and avoid posting this stuff in public to begin with as it's much harder or impossible to retract what you have already po…

This is why I'm so confused by people wishing to document their lives, their children, their home—to strangers on the internet. On the best day, maybe that translates to positive comments and upvotes. Is the juice worth the squeeze? No. A thousand times, NO.
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