Alachua County EMWIN Project

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Thursday, March 6, 2014

Psychopaths and Stalking
Unacceptable NWS Employee Behavior During Spotter Training Class

I have to say that I've REALLY had just about enough of the abusive behavior on the part of the NWS and local Emergency Management. After returning home from this evening's class, I feel like I just escaped from a bully pit.

As soon as I walked in to the class with my girlfriend Kathy, WCM Angie Enyedi looked up, saw me, stared intently at me for quite a long number of seconds, and then said some words that I could not quite hear which then caused everyone in the first few rows to turn around and stare at us both with quite mean looks on their faces. Then Angie stormed off into a back room and the Emergency Manager who was present (his name was "Jeff") followed her with concern. I could hear some of the words being spoken. Angie was complaining about my presence and about her dislike of me. The Emergency Manager kept asking her, "Are you going to be alright?", and, "Can you handle this?", and "Are you going to be able to DO this?" "Yah. don't worry. I'll be alright", she replied to him. Kathy and I both heard this, and we were sitting in the extreme back tables. So that means everyone else at the front had a much CLEARER audio presentation of that fiasco. It was all so unnecessary, and so extremely inappropriate, not to mention unprofessional.

I've about had it with this. This has been going on (since 2004). And at no time has anyone ever bothered to tell me just what the hell is going on, and why everyone in the NWS and local Emergency Management is so damned upset with me. All I know is that it has something to do with malicious words spoken from six or so ham radio operators back in 2005 and it caused a hell of a lot of fear and paranoia over me.

And do you realize the kind underhanded tactics that I had to use to obtain THAT much information? No one would tell me by simply asking. It was as if everyone was under a gag order or something. I actually had to sit down and think of a sneaky, underhanded way just to find out just the simple basics - the things I was supposed to be allowed to know under simple due process laws. I just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

I did it by utilizing my then Assistant Coordinator (and friend), Alisa, to make a phone call to the NWS-Jacksonville Field Office and find out, because they obviously weren't talking to me. It became apparent over time that they had instructed the secretary to watch the Caller ID, and whenever I'd try to call the office to find out what the deal was from someone official, they would persistently not answer. They took calls from Jeff, from Melissa, from anyone else. ...Not from me, and from that point on, nor from Alisa. Not that we were constantly calling people, or bothering people. We weren't. Trust me; I was conscious of that sort of stuff. As a matter of fact, I called only on very rare occasion as it was and at the time it was only to ask them what was going on. But Letro and Sandrik apparently didn't want to have to answer those questions, so they instructed the secretary to ignore my calls. I had Alisa call because she was a number and a voice they did not recognize. She also had a really pleasant-sounding voice. The very first time she called, they picked up the phone. She talked to Steve Letro, the MIC at the time. She found out that they perceived there to be "problems with Todd and Alachua County SKYWARN," but they would not specifically elaborate on just what those problems were. When she asked, she was told "...That's official NWS business." ...Which is kinda fucked when you think about it, because everyone is guaranteed in the Constitutional Amendments to know what they're being accused of, to know WHO is accusing them, to be able to FACE those accusers, to be allowed to answer up in their own defense, and if necessary, to a trial by jury. But here, someone who wasn't the accused called them up, and they easily volunteered information about him being a "problem" on the phone, libeling that person, and then tried to recover by saying it was "official NWS business" when asked the specifics or if we could attend. But by keeping everything secret, they were preventing the victim from knowing what was wrong, and from being able to answer and defend. She also discovered during that phone call that the NWS intended to have a meeting with "various county officials" regarding the supposed "problems". ("...Various county officials???") Alisa immediately picked up on that and asked if we could attend that meeting. Steve barked back "NO!"

...And so, that was that. Just like that. It was a clear violation of our civil and due process rights. Some people had obviously called and emailed around and caused a fear and paranoia of both myself and of Alachua County SKYWARN by saying that we were a "problem", and both local Emergency Management and the NWS were made SO upset and took it SO seriously that they were actually having meetings about it. And yet...we were not allowed to attend when we asked.

Since then, NWS ceased to recognize ACS completely. All subsequent requests to know what the problem was over the years have been ignored. ...And the years ticked by. ...And here we are today.

I have been attempting to gather evidence of all this stuff over the years. It's taken some time but I have some good stuff. In the meantime, I've even composed a sort of journal-blog detailing what has happened.

...And the blog was genius. It really was. I wish I had thought about it long before. Once it went up, all of the abuses and the harassment from the hams stopped right-quick-pronto. And not only that, but they suddenly went from bully mode into damage control mode. (You know..."What chew talkin' 'bout, Willis?")

It worked far better than originally intended, too. It's sortuh got a double-edged sword effect going on with it. To attack it means dealing with some blood. It requires filing a criminal charge or a lawsuit or something. This means investigations. Investigations mean they could be found out; and not just them, but anyone who was involved with them in ANY way. It's like a mag-reflector force field or something. Bounces away everything being shot at it...and I don't have to be present for it to work. And it allows me to be able to freely and peacefully continue in my life without any further stalking and harassment. No one dares...not while this thing is up.

Everyone named within it has visited it as some point or another. I have the IP logs to prove it. It's been up for over five years now. No one has directly challenged it. The IP logs show some have initially tried to discreetly do something about it but have failed - someone obviously having told them to back off just as quickly as they tried. Why? Hmm. Even the FBI has quietly hit my blog - on specific complaint from the NWS Field Office in Jacksonville, no less! And then, with just as much explanation, they too just as quietly disappeared with nothing having ever come of it. Why? Don't they feel confident they could win against me in civil or criminal court? Am I supposed to be some sort of a criminal mastermind or something? Am I some kind of a super genius who is capable of outsmarting everybody...including the police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation?

(long pause) ...Seriously, people??? ...REALLY??? ...Yah?

I mean if I'm some sort of a "problem", why aren't people trying to DO something about me?

The answer has nothing at all to do with superhuman genius. It lies more accurately in the fact that six hams lied to some very important people in some very high places in multiple levels of government about me, and those important people made the conscious choice to take actions without verification of facts, first. That's pretty important stuff, there. That lie is what is doing this to everyone. The hams accused me of things that I hadn't done. They made me sound incompetent and irresponsible. I know that much from the braggings of my Bully #1 - Jeff Capehart, who never could put down the opportunity to torture me with new information about what all the other bullies were trying to do to me next. And that's a bankable Achilles Heel with these guys...their sadistic tunnel vision focus on causing their victims repeated pain in total ignorance of the possibility of discovery caused by their actions. It's an OCD thing with them that you can bet real money on. Everyone wanted to eat up the lies like they were pancakes with blueberry compote or something. But because no one bothered to ask one really simple question of the hams...namely, "Do you have any *proof* of that?", and because those government agencies then took real actions against me based upon that gossip, and because those actions then subsequently caused me HARM...now everyone is in trouble. Now everyone is at risk of lawsuit, and even of criminal charges for many of the illicit actions that were taken in pursuing the idea of my guilt without proof of it, and of deliberately sabotaging, with malicious aforethought, any chance at fair due process to occur. Thus, no. No one has pressed any charges against me. No one has filed any lawsuits. No one wants the mandatory INVESTIGATIONS which would have to occur under those circumstances. And that seems to be everyone's biggest obstacle. If there were any real investigations, their illicit actions might become discovered. People would lose their jobs. People might be criminally prosecuted. People might be sued. A bad situation all around for them. SO...that blog will remain...until such time as I GET that investigation that I have for so long been wanting to occur.

I know what the hams did. I don't know what specifically they said, but I can reasonably infer from the reactions of multiple agencies and organizations that it wasn't exactly complimentary. That being said, I don't know what Angie said about me, either. But I know she also had something to do with it. Al specifically forbade me from talking with Angie - no explanation ever given. So it's obvious that the NWS thinks I've done something dreadful to her. And I've not been allowed to know what it was that was so bad that it made four levels of government, thirteen government agencies, six police departments, and four civilian organizations believe that they needed to work together and take real actions against me.

So what the hell IS it that has Angie Enyedi so upset with me? Our own past personal interactions just weren't bad enough to warrant or justify the kinds of reactions being exhibited in her, today. Her reactions are a spitting, venomous kind of hatred, today. You should SEE these faces she makes. I've never done anything wrong to Angie. Mr. Capehart once tortured me with this tidbit that he said came from Angie: "Todd has only himself to blame for all of this." I do??? So according to Jeff, Angie definitely thinks that I have committed some sort of a serous infraction, then. But with that statement it also becomes frighteningly obvious that everybody else seems to be privy to what I did "wrong" and they're obviously sharing it with others publicly. ...Just not me. So...WHAT IS IT??? They also appear to be coaxing everyone to keep quiet about it, as well. While everyone seems to understand that I was a "problem", not one person yet has bothered to venture forth and tell ME what it that problem was stated to be.

Our relationship before the hams got involved was always civil, kind, and courteous. Then the hams began targeting Angie with anti-Todd drivel and she suddenly backed way off and ceased all communication with me and became paranoid of me. I've gone through past emails, notes, and logs to see what might be in there to give me some sort of clue...and I can find nothing grievous or warranting of these reactions. I've done nothing which could be taken as stalking, or harassment. My emails at worst begged of her not to listen to the drivel, not to cave to it. That's as bad as it got. There was no "please be my girlfriend!", or "why won't you marry me?" or "will you go out with me?" That never happened! I DO, however, remember very weird emails between us like these, though, and you'll note that I repeatedly avoided any other idea in them than a *FRIENDSHIP* at best between us... [ click here ] So I don't understand. What the hell did I do? There's been nothing to warrant the involvement of four levels of government, thirteen government agencies, six police departments (including the FBI), and four civilian organizations including the American Radio Relay League, where one member actually campaigned on a statewide trail using the false rumors that he'd heard about my own personal pain and suffering to garner himself a political position within that organization. He didn't even know me and had never once met or spoken with me. He saw opportunity and callously used my situation for his own political gain!!! And that's how far this all went. Christ! I've never even asked Angie out on a date! In fact, she came to me after an evening spotting training class in 2005, complimenting me on my work with SKYWARN, telling me how proud she was of me, and leading into complaints about her marriage. She was three hours late getting home that night because we stood outside of the Alachua County Library discussing her marriage problems...

"I thought I wanted marriage but now that I'm in it it's just not what I want."
"Matt smothers me. He just needs way too much attention. I can't give him that."
"I just want out."

...Etc., etc., etc. My responses that day, and all along, were just not conducive to her now current reaction...

"I understand. You need to calm down. Take your time. Catch your breath. Every married couple goes through this at some point or another. They get married and then they wonder what the hell they just did. Usually it all works out. But if it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. Take a breather. Take some time off. If necessary, stay with a friend for a couple of weeks to 'think it over'. Then come back fresh and make a decision after *that*. But don't just rush to this conclusion that you need to get out right now. You may find that getting a divorce *isn't* what you want after all."

The conversation that night was more along those lines. I do remember asking her that night if she wanted to go somewhere to grab a beer and talk some more, but she said no and added that she doesn't drink alcohol. It was starting to get late, anyway - it was now after 11pm. And that was that. It wasn't an attempt to get a piece of ass. It was an attempt to be a friend...and talk. That's how I saw Angie...as a friend. And at the time, I was really, really proud of it. She was smart. She had an AWESOME attitude towards the SKYWARN program. I really wanted people like that in our "team", and I was really hoping that I might be able to get her onboard. ...Perhaps to come down and do presentations for other meteorological-related things or something. She had just finished complimenting me that very day (and in days previous in fact) on how proud she was of me and of all of the effort that I had put into the SKYWARN program. She was the only one in my whole circle who had done that. At the time, I was in the middle of a world of ham radio bullies - people who only knew how to berate and criticize and ridicule and make fun. I was beginning to realize the abusive relationship that I was in with them and I was trying to find my way out when they all began to attack me at once in coordination. Jeff Capehart was the ringleader, encouraging the rest. But Melissa Royce and her husband Phil did most of the actual physical/tangible damage with EM and the NWS. I'd also made the mistake though of confiding some of our conversation to Mr. Capehart, and I think Jeff saw opportunity to destroy, and he began attempting to sabotage the new friendship. I trusted that son of a bitch, and he betrayed me. It was at that point that I finally knew for sure that Jeff Capehart wasn't what he pretended to be and I realized that he was in fact acting in an extremely irresponsible and very dangerous manner towards me. Not only had he been attempting to subterfuge the dynamic between Angie and I, but this man, and some of his friends, were attempting to get me into some real trouble with very important people, as well. That was when I finally became convinced that there was something dreadfully wrong with that man. He was not who he appeared to be at all. I was suddenly hit with an extremely creepy and unsettling feeling in my gut in that realization. I never saw him the same way after that. On that day, he'd made a huge mistake. The veneer was now gone, and he had suddenly become something very evil to me. I finally saw him for what he actually was. This wasn't the first time he'd pulled things like this...

It's like when I first met Alisa. Same sort of thing happened before there, too. After coming out of a meeting regarding the possibility of incorporating Alachua County SKYWARN, Alisa and I were walking out of the CCC building (the Combined Communications Center building) and onto the parking lot outside. Jeff got on his cellphone and called Scott West. I remember repeatedly reminding Jeff "Do NOT talk to Scott about Alisa!", and to keep his mouth shut about her, because I knew he might try to force a reaction out of Scott just to cause problems. And I'll be god damned if that's just exactly what that son of a bitch did anyway. He JUST couldn't do it. He couldn't obey. He refused to heed my warning and he did what he wanted, anyway. He told Scott that Todd was "talking to a really pretty girl." That's all Scott needed. It's all just fun and games to Jeff. He's SO god damned irresponsible like that. Scott was in uniform and on his way to work at Advance Auto Parts. You could hear Scott changing direction while driving because you could hear his wheels screeching over the cellphone. I kid you not. Alisa will vouch. It was that loud. And Jeff was standing 25 feet away from us at the time, closer to the entrance to the CCC. Soon afterwards, while I was talking to Alisa on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the CCC, Scott came to a SCREECHING stop in a parking spot next to us, careening to a sideways stop, producing a thick white cloud of burning rubber smoke. In fact he actually hit me and nearly took my knee off. I gave him a mean look. Alisa was not at all impressed with that. Her eyes got so wide. Scott got out of his car, slammed his door shut, ran up to us, stood BETWEEN me and Alisa while we were in in mid-conversation, such that the back of his head was right in my face, got right up into Alisa's space, staring down at her, and proceeded to berate me in front of her. This, Jeff thought was funny. I looked over at him and he had this grin on his face. I was trying so hard to make a serious impression on this person, and Jeff and Scott literally went out of their way to try to deliberately mess that up. There was no reason to any of it. There was no logic involved. It was pure sadistic harassment; plain and simple.

Alisa was 26 years old, then. She had two BS degrees from the UF - one in Civil Engineering and one in Mathematics, and she intended to go back for more schooling - especially in Meteorology. She was preparing to enter Officer Candidate School, too. Previously, she had chased with the Doppler On Wheels team under Josh Wurman two years in a row, driving the spotter jeep. She could interpret radar. She could forecast severe storms and was willing and even anxious to develop some curriculum to have a class for local spotters. I was trying very hard to impress this girl so that she would become a member of our team and so that we could make use of her knowledge and talents to help make ACS something very special. I'd been waiting for someone like her to come along - someone who actually knew her stuff - for such a long time. ...And Jeff and Scott were trying to use her to bully me and humiliate me with.

...But it backfired. She saw through what they were doing immediately and she wasn't impressed. I remember her face, that day. She kept looking back at me as if to encourage me and as if to reinforce that she knew exactly what was going on. I remember breathing a sigh of relief in that moment. She later told me not to let people like that discourage me, and to keep moving forward regardless of whatever they may try to do to me. Instead of Alisa thinking me an idiot as was intended, we became fast friends, and she began to see what the hams were really about that day. Even today, though she's now married and living a few thousand miles away in California, we still remain in contact and she still tries to encourage me. Alisa was always cool. She could see through the crap and recognize the bullshit for what it was and she was never one to be taken in by it all. Unfortunately though, because of the problems caused by the hams, and the resulting problems it caused for us with EM and NWS, Alisa was never able to work her magic, and no one ever got to learn how to forecast storms, or interpret radar, or listen to her stories from her days with Josh Wurman on the DOW team. The BS continued. The official relationships that AC-SKYWARN once benefited from were destroyed. ...And Alisa eventually had to move on and attend OCS. Unfortunately, as things worked out, she got married, had kids, moved to California, and she never did came back. People don't understand the good opportunity that they very nearly had and ultimately missed out on. But I'm digressing.

Scott and Jeff weren't the only ones trying to target Alisa. Jay Lieberman tried to attack her, too. Jeff made Jay believe that Alisa was somehow a problem, dragging me away from my "Skywarn duties". Jay being a very gullible and extremely easily encouraged nutcase to begin with, Jay fell for it and concocted a completely whacked out, off the wall plan to try to get Alisa into trouble with the Navy so that she would be out of the picture so that Todd could better concentrate in his Skywarn duties. Jeff tortured me with knowledge about someone who was relentlessly and repeatedly asking him for Alisa's personal information so that he could go to the Navy and purport that she was "associating with a known security risk". ...That "security risk" being me. Jay's idea was that the Navy would get busy interrogating Alisa and once she was out of the picture...well, you get the rest. But the flaw in Jay's plan was that...if he was calling me a "security risk"...what was to stop them from incarcerating and interrogating ME as well? This was all just fine and dandy in Jeff's eyes; and I was just being stupid to fret about it. Considering all the things that people had already done to me at that point I didn't see why it was so ridiculous for me to worry about it and I took it extremely seriously, in fact. I kept pushing Jeff for the name of this person and he kept withholding it from me. He was having too much fun torturing me with it all. A month and a half later, Jeff finally revealed to me that it was Jay. I wanted to call the police. But all communication with Jay had been lost. Nobody knew what happened to him. At some point later, he was found dead in his bed in his apartment. Apparently he had died from complications resulting from his diabetes. But I can't help but wonder if he died from knowing that I wanted to press criminal charges against the son of a bitch.

At the same time that Jay was trying to get information on Alisa, Alisa already had enough problems of her own going on. She'd spent her life savings on a condo in Jacksonville only to discover herself in a situation where the condo management people had abandoned everyone and left everyone with brand new condos which were apparently in need of much maintenance. Lots of flooding and related damage issues, and constant repairs. Alisa all told had lost nearly $100,000 (yes, one-hundred-thousand) dollars because of those people. It was her very first serious investment with her entire life savings at the time. And in the end it was all lost to disreputable thieves. It was an extremely stressful nightmare for her as it was and she really didn't need to deal with the additional crap from Jay and the hams. What the hams were doing was utterly needless, and heartless, and served absolutely no real, useful purpose at all. It was senseless, and cruel.

And these attacks on both Alisa and myself, they caused soooooooo much damned unnecessary strife for the both of us. We both suffered from a number of breakdowns during the time of the stalking and harassments. It put a verrrrrry serious stress on our friendship. She was trying so hard to be loyal but she was being attacked just for being my friend. She feigned being okay and told me not to worry but I could tell it was affecting her very greatly, in fact. I suspected that Angie, too, was being made to go through a similar situation with the hams; but at the time, Angie denied it. (I think she actually was being bothered by them, but she was confused about who was telling the truth, and who was making stuff up. And I'm sure that was scary as all hell to deal with back then.) Other people left and right were disassociating with me because of the intensity and vindictiveness of the attacks and out of fear that they would be targeted next. Jeff's wife Susan Tipton was so obsessive compulsively engaged in finding out who my "friend" was that when she saw her name with a photo next ot it in the UF's The Florida Engineer engineering journal (for some odd reason a database manager was perusing engineering journals???), she started jumping up and down as soon as Jeff got home one day touting "I know something YOU don't know! I know something YOU don't know!" (He told me that, himself!) What the hell? ...Seriously??? Why the HELL would a woman who hates my guts as much as Susan give such a RATS flying ass about who the pretty girl was who associating with Todd? ...Unless it was because they intended to use it. It was just sick, and stupid. It was utterly ridiculous the twisted fun people were having trying to find out the names of my friends and to find ways to torture and harass them. And, realizing that the police weren't ever going to help me because somebody in EM and/or NWS circles was constantly intervening every time I tried to get help...I actually had thoughts of suicide. This back and forth was at times far too much for Alisa, who between the condo fiasco, her cat dying, and the both of us being stalked and attacked...we were both at wits end. We were having these really intense fights sometimes. And we'd always apologize afterwards. But, this crap was driving us fucking nuts! The hams were trying desperately to drive this wedge between Alisa and I and it was becoming quite obvious to the both of us. We realized it was a definite attack. But the whole problem for all of our attackers was in that we were both strong-charactered individuals. We put up with a god-awful-lot, and yet we're still here. People can knock us down, but we always get back up. And when we get back up, god help the attackers. That's when I got the idea to write the blog. It was at first an act of desperation in an effort to try to protect myself and my friends, and to make it all stop. And it worked very well, in fact. Then everyone began to complain about it. Isn't that ironic? The stalkers who talked about a man and caused him some pretty serious problems themselves complained about my blog "talking about" other people and wanted it gone. Funny how bullies act when you finally fight back and give them the bloody nose. Now, suddenly, everything is "unfair". Now you're the bully.

Angie herself spent a good long week and a weekend going over my blog reading everything, from front page to back, and everything in-between. She checked from work, and from what appears to be a home location. She checked and kept coming back at literally every hour in the 24-hour day...from very early morning, through the afternoon, and into the late evening, and over again. It's amazing the things that a simple web page counter can allow you to catch. She is to-date the only one to have done that, too. Everyone else peruses to find perhaps a name mentioned or something, or perhaps to peek at something that someone gossiped to them about which mentions some people they might know; but usually not to read for full comprehension like Angie did. Even when Al Sandrik thought he'd discovered my blog for the first time a year-and-a-half later even he didn't read the blog for the full comprehension. That became obvious by looking at those IP logs. It's also interesting to note that Angie apparently never said a word to Al about the blog in all of that entire year-and-a-half. Why? Why did she keep it a secret from him like that? If she'd mentioned it to Al right away then Al in his vindictive mindset most probably would have immediately reacted back then to "take care of" that Todd guy - because that's just how he apparently rolls. But see, that never happened. So Angie obviously kept it from Al. I suspect that that is exactly why Angie kept it from Al. I have a theory that everyone is where they're at right now because AL took things into his own hands without anyone's permission or approval first and caused a big problem that is now very seriously biting the asses of everyone around him and he may very well be being looked at as a bit of a hot-headed loose cannon who can really screw things up badly whenever he gets out of control. I think I can tend to easily believe that, myself, considering how he has so badly overreacted with me. I can see that as a valid theory, indeed.

But then, I also don't understand something else... If she read my blog then she understands what I went through. Right? So why the venomous, vindictive hatred? ...Because I talked? SCREW that!!! Are you KIDDING??? If she's upset because I told the world about what happened to me then you know what...that's just screwy. I had a right to tell people what happened to me and nobody has a right to force me to keep my mouth shut about it. That's really whacked-out thinking. What everyone did to me was wrong, god DAMN it! If what I had to say about it happens to screw up their lives then they shouldn't have done what they did to me. It's as simple and as complicated as that. There were procedures. There were rules. There were manuals. There were laws. Everybody took shortcuts instead...skipped due process...skipped proper procedure. And then they turned out to be completely wrong about everything. Now they're in the position of..."Well what the hell do we do NOW? We WASTED that guy! We are SO SCREWED! Can't we make him SHUT UP, somehow?!!" ...Something like that, I guess. If Angie is upset because of the more intimate details about our conversations about Matt, well...the promise for me to keep it all quiet went out the window when Angie started going around accusing me of being a problem in such a way that it denied me proper fairness and due process of law. But mostly, the reason for mentioning that sort of stuff has more to do with making Matt understand what really happened than in convincing the masses of gossiped-to people what actually happened...which doesn't work. That never works. Matt knows I'm telling the truth and that's all that matters. Why does that matter, though? He cannot deny that I speak the truth about that day with me and Angie and what was talked about between us that night, because they've already hashed that very stuff out amongst each other and so he knows it to be an already familiar fact because that was actually happening between them at the time. So now he knows that there is truth in what I'm saying, even if he doesn't WANT to acknowledge it. But he must. Angie was withholding some important information from everyone about our actual interactions, and I needed a way for someone to know that I wasn't the monster that was being painted. That's why I also published the odd emails between me and Angie, as well. Those were meant for Al, for Steve, Dave Donnelly, Chief May, and whoever else who was important in the implementation of all of this ridiculous lunacy and who thought me a problem as a result of all of the gossip that started it. It was all an effort to show people that what I was saying wasn't untrue, and that there was more going on than people realized. WHAT Angie said to people exactly...I will NEVER know. But all I know is that a whole lot of people in NWS and EM circles got very upset and paranoid about me and I want to know WHY. But as far as the conversations that I've been publishing go, they are targeted not at the hordes but the few most important people who matter.

...And so it goes for Dave Donnelly too, and the conversations that Jeff has had with me about HIM, and about numerous other people. It suddenly became apparent to me that trying to convince the MASSES isn't the way to go because these assholes have complete control of the masses; but rather, to convince the INDIVIDUAL people who trust the hams the most and who have been the actual movers and shakers and decision makers in all of this extremely frustrating mayhem. These top people share conversations with him about me that aren't actually meant to GET back to me, and which are meant to be kept in total confidence, because it could very easily get them into some huge, troublesome problems if I found out. But Jeff has a HUGE weakness in how he likes to torture me with how this person and that person said this and that about me - all in an effort to try to make me feel demoralized and depressed and frightened, in an effort to make me cave to the idea that he is all powerful, and how he has all the control and I don't, and I should just cave to him and his awesomeness. So he'd share those private little things that other people said about me to berate and humiliate me. So when I then mention those braggings in a blog, now the people who trusted him know that he's not exactly being as honest with them about the whole thing as they thought, or as trustworthy with them as they thought, because Todd just publicized information about very private conversations that they know they actually HAD about me. This seems to be a far more effective method of attack. Now, the affected people (Emergency Managers, WCMs, etc) can still publicly deny that they ever said this or that; but it's too late. As I said it's not the masses I'm trying to convince, here. Between those individuals and Jeff...well...now they realize that they did actually speak those words about me to Jeff in confidence and, now they know that I'm actually speaking the truth about him stalking and harassing me. It shows that he's not keeping things as secret as he was supposed to and, thus more importantly, that he does indeed appear to be someone who is deliberately starting trouble outside of their control and who could possibly be an extreme risk who could cause things to come back to bite everybody in the ass because he just CANNOT apparently keep his mouth shut. It's all designed to show people that Jeff is in fact NOT the responsible, good-guy leader type that he purports himself to be to everyone, and that he IS dangerous and in fact quite immature. There IS method to this supposed madness, even though it seems like there is none, at first. I do know what I'm doing. Another one of Sun Tzu's rules has to do with adapting. ...I adapted...much to everyone's embarrassment. When people are stalking you it's a serious thing and it's not funny at all. It's frightening and exasperating at the same time. And let's not mince words...in helping these people EM and NWS have now crossed lines. They are now acting WITH the hams in the stalking and harassment, whether or not they'd care to admit it.

This is the sick way that myself and my colleagues and friends have been treated and attacked by the hams over the years. And EM, and the NWS, and the cops, would always find a way to blow it all off, to ignore the evidence, or to make the evidence even disappear. And as a result I'd have to find alternate ways of defending myself. The hams thought it was so damned funny. They all seemed to deem this stuff as acceptable behavior, and I...why I was just being ridiculous to complain. I often found myself wondering where people like this come from. I wondered how people could DO something like this to others, or even to allow such harm to come to others. Every time I tried to go to the police, someone in Emergency Management would intervene and make the cops believe that I was filing false complaints against these people, and evidence would never find a way of becoming gathered, if not completely ignored, and cases would thus be sabotaged. I'd never had any problems with anyone in Emergency Management. There was no reason for EM to pull that. And they did it because the NWS had told them that I was a problem and EM never questioned it. The NWS thought I was a problem because the HAMS had told them that I was a problem - and THEY never questioned the HAMS. But...in a sick way...that is, in understanding how the sociopathic mindset works, I could understand me being attacked. ...But why attack my FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATIONS, too? What the hell was UP with THAT?

Jeff tried to do the same thing with Angie, too. He saw that she was encouraging me and this bugged the living CRAP out of him. I was also starting to realize how abusive the relationship really was between Jeff and I, and he saw that I was coming out of the illusory haze and backing away from him, and that pissed him off. So the first thing he did was to attack the dynamic between Angie and I, and he tried to destroy it - under the guise of "helping" and "in friendship". He began a campaign of secretive emails to Angie about me behind my back designed to make me seem incompetent, irresponsible, and just plain stupid. I know this because Angie sent me a CC of one. But I guess Jeff persisted. ...And so did Melissa Royce, and Philip Royce. And in this case, all those efforts apparently actually worked. (sigh)

I won't go into ALL of the stalking and harassment that I was having to go through in this particular entry. That's all in my harassment journal if you're really that interested. Be prepared though as it's a LONG story. It ain't a few pages, people. But I'll say that it was pretty bad, perpetrated among six different hams - concurrent members of the Gainesville Amateur Radio Society and the Gator Amateur Radio Club - in a sort of tag-team fashion. When one of them ceased it would just be handed off to somebody else, where it would start all over again for us. This went on and on for years. Like I said, I tried to complain to the police, to Emergency Management, and to the NWS, but they just kept blowing me off because the hams kept denying it.

I'm at this point seriously considering taking my plea into the Press rather than EM, or NWS, or the police. Those routes have always proved fruitless. A reporter though... I dunno. Can they coerce an avid reporter who's determined to get to the bottom of something out of getting to the bottom of something? With the Press, no one can play games once something is forced out into the public eye. Actions MUST be taken then or they look bad. But this is starting to get ridiculous. I'm attending spotter training classes, trying to keep up with my training. (You're supposed to keep up with your training, being required to update your training with refresher training at the longest every two years.). And whenever I attend these classes, I'm always met with wide eyes and ugly stares, and/or smart-assed comments from the visiting mets (especially Al Sandrik), or mean looks. Good god, they're even consciously removing my name from the spotter database. I've had it added back three times now and I'm sure it's been deleted yet again. So what the hell is going ON? And I'm so afraid that ONE of these days, it's going to get real. Someone is going to try to tell me that I cannot attend, that I have to leave, to get confrontational with me, and threaten me with consequence of the law where I wasn't actually breaking any law, or being any kind of a disturbance. And some newbie emergency manager who doesn't understand what is actually going on will try to back the NWS employee up. I'll refuse to leave, citing how I didn't do anything, and/or how unfair it is, and try to stand my ground. Then I'll end up in jail or something. I can FEEL that very kind of danger starting to creep up on me. I can just FEEL that point soon in the coming. I can feel them looking for some really lame excuse to use to keep me from attending. It's just in the air.

I DON'T understand this reaction from EM and the NWS, and I'd like explanations. I want that investigation that I never got. Why am I being treated like this, and why am I not allowed to know what it was that I did?

I've had it. Enough is enough. That reaction from Mrs. Enyedi was in extremely bad form. It was not appropriate. There were two rows of people in the front who witnessed the initial reaction and her disgusted looks and inappropriate comments. And the entire ROOM witnessed her storming off into the back room and complaining about me, and witnessed the emergency manager's reactions to all of that. He even sat in the back of the room next to me as if to "protect" her or something. Even Kathy noticed that little maneuver. I don't go to these classes without her anymore - because I'm afraid that if I'm alone someone WILL try to pull something. I want explanations for all of this. And I want apologies. This treatment is so unbelievably unfair. What did I DO to deserve all of this? Why am I not allowed to know? What the hell did I DO? Why were my early harassment complaints about the hams ignored by everyone from EM to NWS to the police? Why were the related cases sabotaged after involvement of ACOEM? What did NWS SAY to ACOEM? And what did the HAMS say ACOEM and to the NWS? These reactions from Angie and other NWS employees show there is DEFINITELY something going on, here. But I am not being allowed to know what it is. You can't act like this in front of hordes of people and not offer the victim an EXPLANATION for it. You can't make a whole bunch of people believe someone is so very bad and then tell that just-victimized person that they don't have a right to know what it was that they did, or to defend themselves. The mission of the NWS is to save lives and property, NOT to use the power of their position under the guise of official authority to manipulate other people into HATING and ATTACKING innocent people who did no wrong, and through the use of subterfuge and the misuse of city, county, state, and federal people and resources to utterly DESTROY someone's life like that, and by their actions to allow so much HARM to occur, without having to answer for it. That's NOT how it works. This is not saving lives. That's torturing someone. That's bullying. That's not how the NWS is supposed to act.

The most basic bottom line of this whole entire thing is this... A whole lot of people took a whole lot of bullshit and jumped to some pretty hefty irrational conclusions with it and used it to beat up a group-imagined "Frankenstein's Monster" under an out-of-control form of mass hysteria, and caused an innocent victim a hell of a lot of harm, in the official name of a heck of a lot of government agencies and civilian organizations. Now everyone is responsible for it and everyone just wants it all to go away so that they can save face and avoid trouble. ...Everyone except the victim...who wants his name and his life back, and a whole lot of justice. ...And the victim isn't letting that happen for them, and everybody knows it and everyone is scared shitless.

There. I think that pretty well sums it all up in the proverbial "nutshell".

AC-EMWIN Server Hiccup Last Night (Now Resolved)...

Looks like the AC-EMWIN server had a hiccup, last night...

The AC-EMWIN server program locked up at about 8:45pm. All the other SUB-programs kept operating and passing on files which were apparently stuck in the ingest directory (the place where the program temporarily places new bulletins just downlinked, which are USUALLY then immediately *deleted* after they've been processed). So ZFPs and HWOs that didn't get deleted from the ingest dir (because the program locked up at just the right time) and the other subprograms just kept pulling them so they got duped to some Facebook pages a couple times overnight. As well, the radar images from 8pm last night kept getting resent all night until I noticed it early this morning after getting up.

As to how I even noticed that things were locked up... On getting up I noticed that the EMWIN test clients - here at the house, and which are connected to the main server remotely - weren't offering up the normal early morning beeps and sounds that occur when they receive the usual morning ZFPs and HWOs and paints things on the map. After years of being used this this, you notice something's not right almost immediately. This caused me to take a look around and check for problems. Indeed, the AC-SKYWARN web page hadn't refreshed the watch/warning map since 8:30pm last night. All the text bulletins on the AC-EMWIN page were "old" from late yesterday afternoon/evening. As well, no (current) bulletins were being sent to the surrounding area Emergency Management Facebook pages which were subscribed to us. (EEK!)

We're in the middle of some current ongoing weather so I didn't even bother to deal with checking logs and figuring things out. I just rebooted the machine entirely right away and that seemed to take care of it.

...So things are again working properly. I'll keep an eye on the server to make sure it doesn't happen again. The program usually worked very efficiently and I almost never had any problems with it and it's pretty stable so I don't expect another problem like that.

Coincidentally, the server hiccup started the process of me checking ALL resources for the possible problem and this included checking Alachua FreeNet. While it's not part of our server problem, I discovered that Alachua FreeNet is also apparently down, too. Something hung on THEIR server, too, last night and some of you may notice that your web page dirs are empty. (EEK!) I've notified AFN admin about it and they're taking a look. So in a way, you can thank our own server hiccup for causing a causal exploration which ended up discovering the AFN outage. :)

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Psychopaths and Stalking
It's "Melissa Shires-DeSantis", now?
An Old Stalker Keeps Haunting Me Online...

My old stlaker keeps haunting me. She keeps checking out my harassment blog (Main Page, Section About Melissa) - the one I wrote about some stalking and harassment that happened to me from a rogue group of problem ham radio operators back about 2004-2006 that she was a part of. At the moment, she's not "stalking" or "harassing" me now. She's just...repeatedly checking out this blog, over and over, month after month, year after year. It's just kinda...creepy. But then she was kinda creepy. It's as if she's waiting for me to get in some sort of trouble over it and she's hoping that it will be taken down some day. Not going to happen. This thing has been observed by people in local police agencies, and even...the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This blog remains, still. Lawyers don't want to touch it. They're too afraid to. ...Because nothing in my blog is untrue, and no one wants to start anything which might unintentionally begin any SORT of an official investigation into it...which would be mandatory if anyone started a civil or criminal case over it. Moral being, if you're going to stalk someone, don't leave behind an evidence trail, and strange, inexplicable circumstances which call attention to themselves. And those abound...everywhere. Melissa's no genious at stalking. I was able to use that against her, in fact...

Her name is Melissa Shires. She's had other names: "Melissa D Shires" in court records in West Palm Beach, "Melissa Shires-Royce" and "Melissa Royce" in Alachua County court records. People in the Gainesville Amateur Radio Society and the Gator Amateur Radio Club knew her as "Melissa Royce". Online, she always uses the same username: "mesochic".

She must have recently remarried as her name is now "Melissa Shires-DeSantis". So I guess, obviously, she must have divorced Phil Royce and then in recent years moved up to Providence, Rhode Island. Pretty damned quick marriage for someone who just recently moved up there. I guess she fled Alachua County after people down here got wise to her and figured out what she was doing. See my harassment blog for more information about Melissa and the really serious problems that I've had from her. She was such a scary nightmare and I'm so very frightened of that woman and all of the things that she was able to pull with extremely important people in emergency management, NWS, and Red Cross circles. She and her now ex-husband Phil Royce both together tag-team-stalked me and caused these agencies to think that I was a very serious problem without anyone once taking any steps to verify facts first.

If I had to characterize Melissa, I'd have to use the term "sociopath". But then that would be a personal application of the term, and not one that any actual clinical diagnosis has yet come up with. Unfortunately, there have been none. And if it were up to me I'd demand it be done. If they could apply the Hare PCL/R test to her I'm willing to bet, very confident in fact, that she would score pretty high. She's power hungry. She wants glory and fame. She seeks power. She attaches herself to important people to get it. If anyone figures her out or gets in her way, she attempts to destroy them - behind the scenes, under the table, quietly, outside of the normal, mandatory Human Resources means and ways of handling, spreading malicious gossip, encouraging intense ridicule, and disassociation. From West Palm Beach, to Alachua County, to Providence, she seems to consistently and regularly seek it within the circles of Emergency Management, the Red Cross, and the NWS. As well, she seems to have an affinity attachment - where she seeks her first "in" - through the local SKYWARN programs. This initially gives her some public service on her local resume, and those first associative contacts in NWS, EM, and the Red Cross. From there, she usually tries to develop ties to people up the ladder, and seeks friends who can supply her with useful information about people whom she considers to be in her way, and possible threats to her goals. First she acts like a friend to get all sorts of information out of people. Then she graduates to spreading gossip about certain people she targets as possbily detrimental to her goals, and immediately gets to work on causing them problems in their associations with others. They usually end up disassociated and looked down upon after a while. She buddies up with the Emergency Managers and Red Cross Directors. This gives her some power to hide behind and locks her in tight with the agencies and gives her a sort of invulnerability. Then she begins taking classes on becoming an "Emergency Manager". She was actually in that final stage down here in Alachua County when local Emergency Manager, Dave Donnelly, finally fired her after receiving too many complaints from other people in EM, ham radio circles, SERT circles, etc. She may have given up the SKYWARN door, though. If anyone did an online keyword search for Melissa and used the word "SKYWARN" next to it in Google, that would be it for her. My blog and all of its subpages that related to her would pop up. So she probably avoided any attachments to SKYWARN while up in Providence. That would lead to her discovery through my public blogs.

I was the Founder and Coordinator of Alachua County SKYWARN. I'd created it pretty much on my own way back in 1997. Had to. When I asked for volunteers to help, as usual, everyone fled to the four cardinal directions. That's what happens when you ask hams to help. Melissa appeared about 2004, after moving up from West Palm Beach and not long after she arrived, all the animals of Hell began to surface, and she very adeptly caused a great many people in ham radio, emergency management, NWS, ARRL, and even in general public circles to believe that an innocent man was actually someone to be much feared and even hated. She painted me to be a "serious problem" as both local EM and the NWS put it during a meeting about me and ACS. I was not allowed to attend that meeting. And to this day, I STILL DO NOT KNOW just what the hell it was that I did wrong, or what I was being accused of.

So yah. Things in the meantime ended up getting so bad for me at Melissa's hand that I had to actually write a blog about my harrassment experiences with the hams, and make it highly public. ...Because going to the police didn't work. All they did was help the hams, even if it was unwittingly. I don't see that as a validating excuse for what they did...I mean, helping the hams because they thought they were doing the right thing. What would happen is this... The hams would stalk and harass me. I'd call the police and file an official complaint and an investigation would begin. During the ongoing investigations, the emergency manager would inapporpiately interfere with the them by telling the involved officers that I was trying to use the law to harass innocent people. Donnelly being their imperious leader, the officers believed he knew what he was talking about. Dave actually had no evidence of me actually being any SORT of a problem and he was acting solely based upon Melissa's word that that I was a problem. You heard me right. I just accused a government official - an Emergency Manager - of deliberate case sabotage through the inappropriate use of his elevated position within Emergency Management to convince officers who did not know either way that I was the problem and cause them to do things to delay or interfere with the outcome of criminal complaints that I had filed, and with their investigations. In other words...the man asked for "favors" which were intended to circumvent normal due process and my civil rights. ...Including knowing what I was being accused of, who was accusing me, being able to FACE my accusers and answer in my own defense, and to a trial by jury if absolutely necessary. Mr. Donnelly used his power to villainize me and to deny me fair due process. He used the power of the County of Alachua to do it, while in uniform for the County, while on the clock for the County. Unfortunately, this also makes the County responsible for what he did, as well. So now you understand why there has been no official investigations. Dave doesn't want the County to officially know. He'd have to make up stuff in order to explain it. And when you make up stuff, you have to be able to back it up with real evidence and proven facts, which he wouldn't be able to provide. Dave, and the NWS, have both acted solely based upon innuendo. I challenge anyone in the NWS or in EM to prove they even so much as have a signed affidavit from any of their "witnesses". And that's the problem. When they finally get down to asking for that, all of the damage to me and to Alachua County SKYWARN has now already been done, and the hams would ultimately be held responsible for it all and they know it. Melissa and the other hams who caused problems now know they could get into a LOT of trouble. And so the witness base will not pan out. Everyone will run for the hills. None of the witnesses will sign any papers. And when summoned into the courtroom to actually DO that, and push comes to actual shove, those people who were once their best source information against Mr. Sherman and Alachua County SKYWARN will suddenly deny responsibility for their previous statements and claim that they never said those things. They'll also claim that no one held a gun to the heads of EM and/or NWS, and that no one TOLD them they had to take the actions that they did against Mr. Sherman and Alachua County SKYWARN. This is the position that EM and NWS now find themselves in. And they know it. But to continue...

Melissa went to Emergency Management and to the NWS claiming titles and positions that I'd never given her. For example, she claimed that I was stepping down from ACS and handing the Coordinator torch over to her. To back this up, she forged business cards which said "Alachua County SKYWARN" and "Coordinator" on them. She never told me she was doing this. In fact, I found out by accident one day while visiting her house for something and I noticed a huge box of business cards sitting on her desk with "Coordinator" on them. When I asked her what the hell that was about, she feigned that they weren't FOR anybody and that she just wanted to see what some cards would look like with her name and "Coordinator" on them. Right. That's why someone would purchase a thousand cards, not one. ...Just to "see". I got on her ass about that and told her to destroy them.

Then came the day when Melissa callously and deliberately placed my mother's life at risk. I was in the bathroom sitting on the john and not having a good day of it. Mom was in the master bedroom on an O2 machine, struggling to breathe, near the end of her life because she had cancer and was dying. ...And Melissa knew about my mother's condition. I lived at the time in an 80-foot-long single-wide mobile home. My room, and the bathroom, were on the complete opposite end of the home, a good LONG 60-foot walk for someone with cancer to traverse. Melissa calls. I'm on the john. My mother answered. It was Melissa. She said she needed to talk to me and that it was "important". My mother told her that I was on the john, "...Can he call you back?" "No", said Melissa. "It's VERY important and cannot wait and I have to talk to him NOW." My mother then disconnected herself from the O2 machine, and began the trek to reach me in the bathroom.

I started hearing a slap on the walls leading up to the bathroom, followed by severe wheezing. Then another slap, and more wheezing. Then another slap, and more wheezing. Realizing it was my mother, I called out to her. "...Are you alright?" I figured that if she was up and out of bed coming to get me, then something very bad or very serious was happening. Was she having a heart attack? ...What's wrong?!", I said. Then my mother answered....

"...TODD!!! [gasp] ...It's Mel-ISSA!!! [gasp] ...She needs... [gasp] ...to TALK with you... [gasp] ...RIGHT AWAY!!!"

"Didn't you tell her that I was in the bathroom and that I can call her back?"

"I DID!!! [gasp] She said... [gasp] ...that it was VERY important... [gasp] ...and that she needed to talk to you IMMEDIATELY... [gasp] ...and that she wasn't getting off the phone... [gasp] ...until you SPOKE with her!!!

I sat there for a moment, eyes wide and my maw agape, in utter disbelief and shock. I knew damned well that there was no emergency and that Melissa was trying to feign an emergency to get me to answer the phone. I took a breath and gathered myself and quickly cleaned up. I was extremely pissed off, now. I gathered my mother under her arm and escorted her back to the bedroom and reconnected her to the O2 machine and got her a glass of ice water. Then I got on the phone with Melissa.

"WHAT, Melissa!", I said. "What is SO important that putting my mother at RISK like this was so absolutely necessary?!"

"...OH, nothing. I just knew that if I DIDN'T say that it was an emergency then you wouldn't pick up the phone. [giggle]"

I wanted to hit the roof, right there. I listened to what she had to say for a little while, hope against hope that there was something of value in anything that she had to say, and there was none. ...Something to vindicate her for putting my mother through that. She had nothing important to say. There was no real reason for it. She just wanted to bitch...and moan...and whine...and complain about other people, and to try find out information about them from me...which I wouldn't cater to. ...And this was a complaint that many people were making about her. People even in State of Florida EM circles, and in the ARRL hierarchy, were passing around little warning emails about the "little girl who complains a lot", and advising to not to participate in that.

After hanging up the phone with her, I fired off an extremely angry email to her husband begging him for help in getting control of this woman, and letting him know how upset I was for putting my mother's life at risk like that. Maybe Melissa figured...what?...that she's already dying so what's it matter? I was pissed. Instead of understanding, and trying to help, Phil gets angry with me, and now I'm hearing word from Jeff Capehart that Phil is going around on a rampage, talking with people in the NWS and EM circles, and complaining about all the "problems" with Todd and Alachua County SKYWARN. (...Always Mr. Capehart with all the information, you see. ...Always in the know he is. ...Always seeming to have everyone's ear. ...And yet no one ever seems to catch on to that.)

Not long after this, I got an email...actually FROM myself, with my name spelled wrong, from a Yahoo email account, claiming that "...changes are coming real soon for Alachua County SKYWARN." I'd been stalked and harassed and threatened by the hams before and I'd told everyone that if it didn't stop I was going to start calling the police and pressing real charges against people, and to knock it off. Then I got the harassing email. ...And it's from a Yahoo account using my forged name. So I called the police, like every good little victim is supposed to do. In the middle of the investigation, months into the case, Jeff Capehart is bragging to me all of the details about my case...how many emails I'd sent to the officer in charge, how many times I'd even called that officer, what I said to him about meetings I'd had with Chief May, and with Dave Donnelly in complaint of the hams, about what I said about Phil and Melissa, etc. And again, remember...the case was still ongoing. So...like...HOW was a random ham radio operator able to tell me all the intimate details about an ongoing case? ...Because the cop was sharing information with the perpetrators. Why? Because Dave Donnelly had told him that it was more likely that I was the problem and not the people I had filed the case against. This was WRONG. Because of that, the cop developed an attitude against me, and refused to gather IP logs, and he let the expiration dates come and go, and the case died.

...So because of the Emergency Manager's inappropriate interference, the cops would sabotage the still-ongoing cases - refusing to collect evidence, delaying cases I'd file so that expiration times for evidence gathering would expire. In one case, they actually locked me out of the room containing a server that I ran (see the Alachua County EMWIN Project) when I called the police after losing control of my mouse one day while remoting in to make some changes to the EMWIN software. It was later discovered that that incident was actually perpetrated by a friend of Melissa's named Jeff Capehart, W4UFL, who one day, when we were alone, even admitted to me that it WAS INDEED HE who had hacked into the server. I'd logged in to the server remotely to make some updates and changes to the EMWIN sofware. As soon as the screen finished painting I lost control of my mouse. It was February 14th, 2009, at about 12:30am. I could only watch while he went into DOS, through various directories, and eventually went into database files containing names and telephone numers of EMWIN customers! Because of how Dave Donnelly and the GARC Faculty Advisor had presented it to UPD, I ended up locked away from my own computer, while the perpetrator was given full access to it because at the time he was the club's computer administrator. UPD took my key and after that did nothing at all. They didn't even file an official case report! That was completely inapproriate considering that this was a COMPUTER CRIMES INVESTIGATION! I never got my investtigation. Soon on the heels of this, Dave Donnelly fires off an email to Faculty Advisor Jay Garlitz demanding that all of the EMWIN equipment be packed up and handed over to the Alachua County Office of Emergency Management. (It was one of the rare occasions where Dave actually included his official business tagline in an email.) I actually had to threaten a lawsuit against ACOEM, and to involve the Press, to get them to back off. The equipment no longer belonged to Emergency Management. Too many years had gone by and a lot of the equipment had failed and I'd spent too much of my own money on keeping everything going and in replacing equipment and parts to let it all be taken away by some dumbass who didn't understand what was actually going on. I mean, we're talking about by now THOUSANDS of dollars that I had personally put into all of the equipment and software. That was not going to happen. Turns out, according to Mr. Always-In-The-Know-Capehart, Melissa's then husband Phil had eyes on the equipment and wanted it personally for use with the ACOEM's own ham radio club.

It was pretty scary all the things that were happening all around me because Melissa and some other hams had falsely accused me of something. I was actually being attacked now by people in real government agencies with whom I'd never had a previous problem with before. I couldn't even get a proper police complaint filed or have an investigation started - for anything because people in EM were interfering with the cases...deliberately! The cops would feign cooperation, and feign going through the motions, but do nothing - and happen to take a whole lot of time to do it. Melissa had that much control of everyone in all the key places. I wasn't able to make any of the harassments stop, either. There was nothing TO stop the hams...and they all seemed to know it. The Emergency Manager was actually helping them, thinking that I was the problem not they. And the cops were helping them because the Emergency Manager was inappropriately interfering - TELLING them that I was the problem. Hell, when the Emergency Manager found out that our EMWIN server and ground station equipment were going to be kicked off of the rooftop of the Shands Dental Science Building (according to Jeff, the Emergency Manager had implied to the GARC Faculty Advisor that I was making stuff up and that the hacking of the EMWIN server had probably never happened), he sent the Faculty Advisor an email with his official ACOEM taglilne signature attached to it, giving it the appearance of something "official", with the intent of trying to intimidate the Faculty Advisor into turning over all our EMWIN ground station equipment to them - thousands of dollars worth of equipment! - before the Faculty Advisor had any chance to think about it and realize what was actually going on. Neither GARC nor ACOEM owned it and they had no legal CLAIM to it, either! It had actually been signed OVER to Alachua County SKYWARN by John Fleming, of FDEM in Tallahassee. It was ours. So in other words, yet again without any fact-finding done first, the local EMA tried to use coercive intimidation to acquire equipment that did not belong to it - to in turn be given as a gift to the very same hams who were causing so many problems! So yah...I actually had to threaten to file a civil suit against ACOEM before Donnelly finally got scared at the possible attention to what he was doing and let it go! And I had to threaten to file a lawsuit against GARC, too, before they finnally started hearing me. And then, before I could take back possession of the equipment, the UF lawyers even made me sign a document first - stating that I would not turn around and sue anyone. And I couldn't get the equipment back UNTIL I signed it first. That's COERSION! To top it all off, GARC still has our 4-bay Cushcraft transmitting antenna, and 200' feet of RG-8 cable, and 200' of some pretty expensive 9913 hardline cable, and a Polyphasor. They kept it all; TOOK it from us, citing that they "needed it for the club." So when we fianlly got our equipment back, they had stolen more than a few hundred dollars worth of stuff from us that we never got reimbursed for.

All of this (and more)...because some hams called someone a "problem", and were never asked to prove it.

Melissa got a lot of official people to believe that I was such a serious problem that I needed to be "dealt" with. And she had Dave Donnelly wrapped around her finger.

Finally, I wrote the harassment blog - partly as a tool to try to get some control back in my life, to call attention to what Melissa and other hams were doing, and especially, in the hopes that the unwanted public attention would put fear into the hearts of them and make them stop. That blog was a genious move because it actually WORKED...most PERFECTLY. ...Better in fact than I had hoped it would.

Over the years since, Melissa keeps checking my blog. She does it so often in fact that it actually calls attention to itself in my IP logs and I can't help but notice it. She keeps checking it, obsessively. She can't stop. She can't seem to just let go of me. And every time she does, every time she checks again, it's like a red flag...it's very obvious. ...And every time she does, I can see WHERE she's hitting from. It's like...I could WATCH her moving from Alachua County, and fleeing to Rhode Island. My web counters would detect all of this activity and log it each time.

As an excellent smooth-talker who was able to convince public officials in local emergency management and in the National Weather Service that an innocent man was a very serious "problem"...she was a genious. But as for covering her tracks, and hiding her crimes, keeping her mouth shut, etc. - she's sort of an utter moronic, imbesilic failure. She just can't do it right. When Melissa hates, she gets a tunnel-vision focus on causing her enemies pain and suffering. She is UNABLE to put it down and I was able to use it against her to call attention to herself. She's so predictable with this focus that you can bank on it. It's a sick, twisted, sadistic character trait in her. She CAN'T put down the hate - even if putting it down would mean to avoid detection. She gets so focused on "beating up" her enemies that she forgets what's in front of her and what's around her and who can hear the sadistic things she brags about. She consistently fails to watch her peripheral, and her six, and she gets caught. And that was actually what led to her downfall down here. I didn't have to do any real hard work. She was so obsessive in her abuses that she brought herself down, and left evidence in the form of multiple witnesses and a physical trail of vindictive things done that can today still be referenced.

As a result of the IP logs (see example), I was able to recognize that Melissa had apparently fled up to RI - where she is also apparently now attempting to get in with EM and the Red Cross up there, too...just like she did here.

Here, both ACOEM and the Red Cross fired her simultaneously for forging business cards, advertising titles she didn't actually have, being mean and abusive to innocent people, stalking and harassing them when they didn't do things "her" way. You know...your basic power-monger. She also had a nasty bad habit of calling people up at various hours of the day and night and demanding that they talk to her about really inconsequential things. She'd ring their phones off the HOOK. And all she'd do was complain about people, while keeping you from doing more important things. And if you didn't pick up she'd get angry and ring again and again and again until you finally picked up. She used to call me up at home, at work, while I was 200 miles away doing Census work. I'd tell her to stop and she'd just ignore me. She was such a majorly exasperating pain in the ass about her need for gossip and information about other people. She just couldn't put it down. She's preys upon everyone's want to "let the strangeness go" and to "just ignore it"; and unfortunately, that is EXACTLY how she is able to keep getting away with it for as long as she does.

Both agencies sent her their dismissal letters at the exact same time, and neither agency was even aware that the other was doing it! Now she's up in Rhode Island, trying to get in with their EM and Red Cross angncies. Oh my god! Are you kidding me? Are Providence Emergency Management and the Providence Red Cross in for the same thing, themselves? Are there going to be more innocent victims who are going to be treated same as I was? Who's name and career is she going to ruin and destroy, next? I don't know. I fear for those people, though. I worry that no one will do much more than a basic-level background check on her, and won't EVER think to check the internet...

(sigh)

She needs to stop. She knows what she did. Why does she keep coming back? Does she not LIKE that I blogged about what happened to me? Well, you know?...SORRY, Missy. The laws don't prevent me from writing about all the bad things that actually did happen to me. I have a right to talk about it. God. She was so bad that no one down here would work with her anymore. Then she got fired from VOLUNTEER PUBLIC SERVICE angencies! How the hell does THAT happen? So she fled town to someplace where no one knew her, I guess. ...Where innocent people have no clue who she is, or about the power that she needs and has to have and that she hunts for, and the damage that she can do with it.

I think she has this faint hope that someone in the NWS, or local EM, or elsewhere, will "take care of that Todd guy" and make his stupid blogs go away. So she keeps checking in now and then on that very hope. Fact is, the blog HAS been visited by GARS, GARC, the ARRL, Emergency Management, the NWS, GPD, UPD, ASO, the State Attorney's Office, and good lord!...even the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the past few years...and I've got the IP logs to prove it. It's not like no one knows about its existence. They've all been hitting it ever since the blog first went up in 2009. It's been many years now. If they were going to do something they would have by now. Besides... ALL of the Statutes of Limitations have run out for them now, anyway. And yet, no one has ever made attempt to do anything about the blog. My blog still remains! I've been issued no C&D's, no restraining orders, no subpoenas to appear. I've received no emails, no letters, no phone calls from anyone official. No lawyers or agents have knocked at my door. And they won't. It's not going to happen. It'd be political suicide. And she'll get NO ONE to step forward to be a witness to help her out...no one whom she'd duped into helping her in the past. Not gonna happen. Because no one wants to step forward and give me a NAME to even one person who HELPED her cause me so much pain and suffering. I'd either put them in jail for their abuses of power and/or sue them for everything that they had...and they know it. So, how can it be that so MANY agencies of the law have visited my blog on specific REQUEST of some other agencies and yet...in all those years...NOTHING has happened? ...Because their lawyers are all saying the same thing: "If what this guy is saying really did happen and it really is true then our best legal advice to you is to just leave it alone and NOT make any waves!" I know what my blog means to people. My blog is my secret self-defense weapon. Picking up a sword against it just thrusts the sword right back at my attackers, and they know it. It's a serious, SERIOUS can of worms for them.

[pause]

Remember the "Which cup has the poison in it?" scene from The Princess Diaries? Really...The poison only works against THEM, not me. I'm NOT worried about it.

She probably used the same drills that she used with us in convincing people up there to work with her...

"I have lots of previous experience with SKYWARN."
"I was a Coordinator with West Palm Beach SKYWARN for twenty years."
"I've run a net before."
"I've done this before."
"I've done that before."

And yet, she seems to not ever know how to DO things, and always needs you to hold her hand, while doing it, and no one ever thinks all that much about it. Right?

She'll probably claim that she was "Coordinator" of Alachua County SKYWARN, too, even though it's a lie. Well no. I take that back. She won't do that. Not if she's smart. Someone might actually look that up, and then she'd be screwed. So I say that she's more likely to not say a WORD about Alachua County SKYWARN at all, in fact. Heh-heh-heh. ...Not if she's smart.

Meantime, she should just go away and leave me alone. If she doesn't like this, well I'll say it again...she shouldn't have done what she DID then. It's as simple and as complicated as that. Nothing she did was ever necessary. No one held a gun to her head and FORCED her to be mean and vindictive to people. She only has herself to blame for her own actions.

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Friday, June 1, 2012

Changing The Family Business Flag

Spent the past few days overhauling the web page I made for my girlfriend's business - Mini-Storage of Gainesville. Apparently Penske decided that they wanted to move operations into Home Depot across the street where they would be much more visible, and they gave her less than a month to prepare. That decision could have put her AND her neighboring businesses out of business all at once. The neighboring businesses never knew how close they came. :(

Luckilly, they signed a waver of the contract which would have prevented her from starting up a competing business for 6 months after separation, and within days of the notice, she was able to get a contract with U-Haul.

But this meant that I had to completely rework the web page I made for her. (sigh)

So I got to work and everything is now changed over. She will no longer be renting out Penske's, but U-Hauls, instead.

She actually started out something like 15 or so years ago with U-Haul. She's even had a past Gainesville Sun article written about her and how she helped the owner of the Memphis Bell with a big discount when he had to make an emergency landing in Gainesville years ago, in need of a new engine. :) Apparently it was a big deal how she helped him out. I should probably post that article on her website in the "About Us" section or something. We couldn't use it before because up until recently she's been dealing with Penske trucks, and the article was written when she was renting out U-Hauls.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

On Starlings, Falcons, and Stalkers...

If you've ever been stalked by multiple people before as I have (see Where'd Todd Go?...On Dealing With Psychopaths and Stalking), this video makes total sense to you. I came across it when a Facebook friend posted it, and it made me stop and think.


This video was interesting to me because I couldn't believe that the birds would act in exactly the opposite of what you would expect. You'd THINK that where attacked, they would disperse in every possible direction in order to confuse the attacker. Instead, they all balled into one gigantic black ball, offering up any NUMBER of choice peices of meat.

Then it hit me...

I thought about my stalkers and how they had reacted when I fought back to make them stop. It's something in every animal - even in humans; but especially in animals.

When you're an animal and you know you're about to die, you panic, and you blend in with everybody else in the hopes that the attacker will get confused and *miss* you and get someone else, instead. Or, in the human equivalent: when you get caught, blame everybody else, and hopefully in the confusion someone ELSE will get it, and not you.

I see this darkness in far more people now in my learn-ed age than I would have ever allowed myself to have realized or believed in my naive, inexperienced, and cheerfully hopeful youth. I remember always having exaggerated, elevated, much brighter hopes for mankind when I was a lot younger. (sigh)

In the human world, we're supposed to be intelligent. In the human world, we're supposed to have something that the animals do not, called a "conscience, which supposedly "elevates" us such that it allows us to overcome our instincts to do amazingly honorable things to protect others from harm. In the human world, we're supposed to be more "civil", with morals which are designed to make us own up when we've done something wrong. In the human world, we're supposed to know huge-sounding words such as "honor", "chivalry", "compassion", "understanding", "kindness", "fairness", and phrases like "service to others".

I keep hoping to see good examples of "civilized" humans in my life but in reality, I am continually disappointed at how, in the end, instinct always overcomes, and the good guys always get it because the bad guys were too chicken, and despicably dishonorable.

And you know, it doesn't seem to matter how much "religion" someone's got, either. Even politicians go to church and know a few verses to fool people. For most, religion is simply a notch for the belt - something to put on the resume to fool others into believing that you're a person of "good character". Where is religion, today? It seems to be filled more with goodness-sayers and fast-quoters than very many actual good-doers. I think more and more people are giving up on "religion" these days for that very reason. It doesn't hold the honest goodness and the truth that it used to, anymore. As a result, the world has become so much darker these days; and much more of a "fend for yourself and blame it on the next guy" reality, today.

In the end, the Judases vastly outnumber the ones who are willing to do the right thing, blaming everyone else, hiding behind public service activities and faked good intentions for "alibi", and trying to use everyone else to save their own butts when that falcon "piper" turns wielding really sharp claws.

In other words, that reaction in the video made TOTAL sense to me.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Considering Lawsuit Against State of Fla Over Radar-detector Ticketing Campaign...

Considering the possibility of a class action lawsuit against the State of Florida/DMV/FHP for ticketing motorists for the usage of radar detectors in vehicles on Florida roads:


  1. where the Florida Senate actually killed a bill by Senator Oelrich in 2007 to ban RDs in Florida, setting a "precedence" that their use is okay and accepted in the State of Florida;
  2. for setting confusing, nonspecific, unclear, and contradictory laws (e.g., the "Windshield Obstruction Law"), which contains unfair, inexplicable loopholes for revenue-generating devices, which when combined with the Senate's precedence to allow the use of RDs, places motorists into a no-win, double jeopardy situation of unfair and unconstitutional bias against them if they attempt to fight it.
  3. using the windshield obstruction law to call RD use on windshield "unsafe";
  4. while at the same time offering no adequate or reasonable explanation as to how the toll device is somehow "safe";
  5. charging motorists to USE a toll device that the windshield law would otherwise deem to be be "unsafe" by it's positioning - except by inexplicable "exemption";
  6. accosting motorists $114 for having an RD mounted on a windshield, but not fining people for the use of the toll device mounted on the windshield - often in the same position;

Looking for lawyers to work either pro bono or on a pay-only-if-you-win basis to extract reasonable explanations out of the Florida DMV / Highway Patrol system, and the State of Florida itself, or face a lawsuit.

[ Click here for more information ]

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Meltdown At Moe's...

Last night, I went to the Moe's by the Royal Park 16 theater on Newberry Road. I ordered a Joey Jr. (medium burrito), 3 hard-shell Funkmeisters (tacos), and a Taco Salad for Kathy. ( I was hungry. :) ) On Kathy's taco salad, she just wanted ground beef, lettuce, onions, cheese, salsa, and guacamole. On my stuff, they were all the same way...ground beef, lettuce, cheese, onions, sour cream.

FIVE TIMES I had to repeat my order back to the assembler. FIVE TIMES. Why? ...Because every time he asked me what I wanted and how it was to be composed, he stopped me mid-sentence to take care of some chic who had just walked in the door who was upset about the price increase in the "Moo Moo". I'd start to tell him what I wanted, and then some chic at the back of the line would interrupt him. "Oh my GOD! Did the price of the Moo Moo go up?!" He'd cut me off and make me wait while he stopped everything to take care of this poor little college student, who was so distraught over it that she had to know what the deal was NOW.

Have to commend him. It was very important to him to make sure that all the pretty little college girls were satisfied. He'd go through his long schpeil with the girl, and then come back to me and ask what I wanted again.

As I spoke, yet AGAIN, another girl would walk in and freak out over the 10-cent increase in the price of the Moo Moo kids meal. (This must be a pretty popular item with the girls, or something.) Yet again he cut me off to handle this poor little girl who just had to be gently consoled. Yet again, he'd come back to me and again he asked me what I wanted. Then the girl would interrupt him with another question (I forget what about now), again cutting me off. He'd stop me again and talk to her. He came back again and AGAIN asked me what I wanted. (We're up to three times being asked, here.) I paused and stared at him angrilly, but he didn't notice. (sigh) Yet again, I began to explain how I wanted things put together. YET AGAIN...YET ANOTHER girl came in and wanted to know what's up with the price of the god-damned Moo Moo! (Are you KIDDING ME???!!!) :) I'll be damned if yet AGAIN he cut me off and stopped what he was doing and explained to HER now how the price had gone up and how there's no longer the 50-cent bonus thing, but now you get a free drink and something, "...So it's like...included" he says, arms outstretched to put some body expression into his sell.

Noticing the problem, another employee jumps in now, and he wants to help with my order. He asks me what I want. I explain it to HIM. Now the dizzy guy comes back. He wants to know...AGAIN...what I want. But the other guy has begun assmebling my order. He's already started to put together the burrito. The dizzy guy ALSO begins putting together a SECOND burrito, not understanding that the other guy had decided to step in and help because his coworker wasn't paying attention. The helper guy leaves, thinking the frazzled guy has it. AGAIN, the dizzy guy asked me what I wanted on everything. I pointed out, "But uhm...I only wanted ONE burrito."

Now the dizzy guy is starting to get upset with me. As he sees it, I'm just being ditzy and I'm just not able to get my order straight, and he's had to repeatedly ask me what I wanted. (Pause for the gears to click and for the audience to put it together.) Now he's starting to give me looks - like he thinks I'm stupid and incompetent. He's irritated now. He's thinking I can't get my order straight, and that I'm causing him his problems. He's now got two burritos, three tacos, and a taco salad laid out on the assembly board. In an irritated voice, he asks, "So, you DON'T want two burritos?" He looked confused for a second like he didn't know what to do with the extra burrito, and like he was really pissed now. He folded up the extra burrito, and threw it back behind him at the garbage can without looking, and it splattered against the wall and fell to the floor, instead.

Now his attitude is angrier. He looked straight into my eyes, and started treating me like I was stupid.
"Okay, I've got ONE Joey Jr., THREE Funkmeisters, and ONE Taco Salad laid out here. Is this correct, sir?"
"Yes."
"Are you SURE, now?"
"Yes."
I'm being VERY patient at this point, because I REALLY want to knock this guy down on his ass for being so smart and rude for something that is really HIS fault.

He finally began assembling everything together, and I could see that he was being deliberately sloppy about it because by now he's turned this whole thing around in his mind that *I'M* the problem and he just can't wait to get me out of the way. I'm so glad to be away from this guy and finally on my way to the register.

FIVE TIMES this guy stopped to come to the rescue of some STUPID little girl who HAD to know what was up with the price of the STUPID "Moo Moo". (...What a STUPID name! *Sigh!*) And in the end, he treated ME -- in front of EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE LINE, and in front of everybody else sitting in that restaurant, and in front of all of his peer employees, like *I* was a dumbass -- loudly, and rudely.

I am NEVER, EVER returning to that Moe's ever again. I should have gone to the one west of I-75. It's slower, not so many ditzy students, and the crew seems to have such a better attitude.

I didn't deserve that. I just wanted some food. There was no reason for me to have to experience that. I like Moe's, but that experience was uncalled for...especially throwing the food against the wall, and making ME seem like *I* was the problem in front of all the other people who WERE the actual problem in that line.

I came so close to slapping a $20 bill down at the register and saying "Keep the food; here's a twenty for the inconvenience I caused you all", and walking out. ...But I didn't. I should have.

UPDATE - Aug. 25, 2011:

Actually got an email from Ernest Milian, who is the Director of Operations at Moe's (and a number of other restaurants) around town...

Mr. Sherman, I read your blog. It was very detailed and informative. I have taken the opportunity to go back and review the video tapes from the shift that day and use it as a training tool for the employees. We value your business and share your belief and it is our goal to serve our guests smartly and politely as the progress through the line. I apologize for the experience you had and appreciate you reaching out to us to inform us.

Ernest Milian
Director of Operations
Alachua Restaurant Group


Oh, good gosh! Now I'm immortalized in training videos! Now they'll ALL know who I am when I walk into the door! (grin) ;O)

Kidding aside, I do appreciate Mr. Milian's concern, and his effort to get back with me on it.