[ketzo]

Yeah, but like... they didn't even "let the police handle it." They just went straight to "late-night stakeout."

> Cops can’t do much if you’re worried someone will harm you or a loved one.

You're right, and that would be a scary situation... if they didn't have more than enough evidence for the police to get involved. Repeated, late-night visits to leave threatening messages would be plenty for a restraining order in the U.S., or at the very least to spur further police investigation.

> What actually effective steps can you take if someone is harassing a female in your life?

In this case, her brothers could have taken turns driving home from work with her, walking her to her car, sleeping over at her place, while they waited for police to proceed with investigation. They could have helped her get connected with a self-defense course, or bought her mace (depending on legality).

Stalkers/harassers can make people feel extremely helpless, and yes, there are a lot of really horrible situations where cops are useless despite an obvious threat.

This... is not one of those situations.

[kanyethegreat]

> Repeated, late-night visits to leave threatening messages would be plenty for a restraining order in the U.S., or at the very least to spur further police investigation.

Restraining order against whom exactly? The masked man? Also, what tactical protection do you think a restraining order provides against someone with actual intent to harm?

> In this case, her brothers could have taken turns driving home from work with her, walking her to her car, sleeping over at her place, while they waited for police to proceed with investigation. They could have helped her get connected with a self-defense course, or bought her mace (depending on legality).

All good suggestions. Unfortunately, everything other than self-defense is a temporary (and likely not sustainable) countermeasure. Regarding the self-defense strategy, barring effective weapon use, the odds aren't in the target's favor given 1/ the size discrepancy (they even talk about how burly the stalker was) and 2/ the fact that the assailant has the element of surprise. It's sad that the only viable option seems to be "carry a weapon, train in martial arts, wait for an incident and hope you're able to defend against it." This is not preventative. It's reactionary.

> This... is not one of those situations.

I disagree.

[bigiain]

Also, in "this situation", they already have camera footage of it being one guy coming on his own.

3 burly overprotective brothers vs some creepy stalker dude who shows up late at night like a coward? Those are odds that I'd totally put on the brother's side. Since the cops had already "Sorry, not much we can do"ed the sister, I'd happily be big brothering up and taking that confrontational risk.

(I'd also happily do it with barley plausibly denial "sporting equipment" in hand as well - 3 burly Scottish brothers carrying cricket bats vs one cowardly late night creepy stalker? And if ever needed I'd try on the "Why yes officer, we were all on our way back to our sister's house from a late night cricket practice when we discovered a man interfering with our sister's car!" line.)

[fphhotchips]

As per the article, they definitely did call the police beforehand. Clearly the police had taken little, if any, action. It's hidden, but it's there: "my sister had already had a couple of police visits about the previous incidents".

[Eisenstein]

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.

[ceejayoz]

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

[Eisenstein]

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.

[ceejayoz]

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.

[Eisenstein]

You are right, I should have phrased the question better. What I meant by antics was the desire to confront him physically.

[tptacek]

Identifying people who are committing crimes against your family isn't "doxing". Or: it is, and a good illustration of the uselessness of that term.

[steveBK123]

What do you think a restraining order would do, and against whom?

Car chase & citizens arrest is where we can argue lines were crossed, sure.

But, the cops were not going to do a multi-night, multi-hour, multi-man surveillance operation to catch the guy in the act.

At the very least, the brothers needed to do this to collect evidence about who the guy was, and hand that over to the cops. Or contact him by phone/social media to let him know they know who he is and what he has been doing.

[steveBK123]

The problem with this is trusting that the situation won't escalate enough in between the time the police are contacted and they maybe collect enough evidence to come up with charges, and that when charged the suspect would actually be held pre-trial, actually found guilty, and actually sentenced to time in jail.

The path from "call police" to "bad guy caught" to "bad guy in jail" is non-linear.