Kathleen Gallagher
Benefitting Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center
Kathleen Gallagher was obsessively stalked for over a decade. He was a high school classmate. She barely knew him. Yet throughout her twenties Kathleen's stalker had tracked her every move, found each new phone number and residence, and appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a weapon in hand. But with no anti-stalking legislation on the books, Kathleen was left with very few options. She educated herself on the psychology of stalkers: how to stay a step ahead of them, how to outsmart them, how to document them, how to survive them. Her quick and clever thinking kept her alive, and today Kathleen known as "The Safety Chick", had used her wisdom to inspire and empower millions to make smart personal safety choices.
Wise Words
“It just wasn’t making sense, but as women do, I didn’t want to say, “Who the heck is this?” I just kind of kept playing along because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“When I got back into the house, the police were in the home, and they said, “Look, we’ve put a tap on your phone. If he calls, you need to keep him on the line so we can trace and try to find him.” I’m like, “This is out of a movie. Are you kidding me?” We waited there for a little bit and sure enough, he called. I picked up the phone and started talking to him, and he said, “Why is your dad afraid of me? Why is everyone afraid of me?” I’m like, well, in my head, I said, “Maybe it’s the semi-automatic weapons you bring, hello.” I just said, “I don’t know what makes you say that.” He goes, “Why do you keep calling the police?” Whatever.
“The police were able to track him. “The next day that detective, Ron Brooks, came over to my house, sat my parents and I down and said, “Look, you have a serious situation here, and you’re going to need to get a restraining order.”
“He was arrested again. This time, a detective did a thorough interview with him.”
“For all these years, I had to learn every aspect of personal safety from the obvious self-defense, to how to keep my information private, to how to secure my home inside and out.”
“We ran up the stairs to the roof deck so that we could see what was going on. At the same time, I’m calling 911. I have a restraining order in place on him in Santa Monica, in the Marina Del Rey area with that police department. I call 911 and they put me on hold. I watched him go to his car, get a gun out, put it in a paper bag, and start coming back round to the front of my unit. The police were able to get on the phone with me. I told him what was going on. I gave them the vehicle description and my roommate said, “Oh my God, he’s coming in.”
“The key is to stay alive as a stalking victim, you have to stay one step ahead of your stalker.”
“This is the thing with stalkers, these people are delusional, there’s nothing that you’re going to say that’s going to make them stop or not stop.”
“You cannot live a free and empowered life if you are not dedicated to making and being responsible for your personal safety.”
“I mean, we know what criminals look for. There have been dozens of really good studies done on what predators look for.”
Links
Kathleen’s website: safetychick.com
Step-by-step list of what to do if you’re being stalked: https://safetychick.com/stalking-awareness-vital-information-on-how-to-stay-safe-2/
Kathleen’s Facebook: @thesafetychick
Kathleen’s Twitter: @thesafetychick
Kathleen’s Instagram: @thesafetychick
Kathleen’s charity: Stalking Prevention Awareness and Resource Center: stalkingawareness.org