The Stalking of Andy Stephenson

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By Elizabeth Ferrari, Posted by Rob Kall (about the submitter) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

Andy called me one day, happy because he'd been given a new date. Then called again, because they'd moved the date up. He was terrified, sobbing and I was caught flatfooted. Torn between trying to mind Andy's care and trying to stop or answer the horrible accusations being sown all over our community, I had very little to offer his terror, dealing with my own.

After Andy was admitted to the hospital, the rumors turned into threats. A bounty was offered for anyone who could sneak into his hospital room. It was said he was getting a face lift. A telegram was sent just to see if it could be successfully delivered. The harassment was nonstop. We tried to shield Andy from it, with less success than we would have liked.

A day or so after his surgery, Andy called me from his bed in ICU. I picked up the phone and he began to sing to me, Come out, come out, wherever you are. I started crying. And when we hung up, I offered that bit of good news to our on line progressive community at the Democratic Underground. Immediately, the opposition took that as evidence that Andy was not in fact recovering from a surgical marathon. And this was their pattern. Every specific I offered to comfort the community was taken up by Andy's stalkers and used as evidence that we were frauds.

Andy left the hospital and spent two weeks recovering at a friend's house, learning how to eat again, learning how to move, weaning himself from the morphine that he'd needed post surgery. During this time, one of his supporters in Baltimore had her car vandalized a message was sent. Shortly after he left to return to Seattle, his second East Coast hostess was stalked to her home and she watched as someone tried to open her front door. His supporters everywhere were systematically intimidated and all the while, they tried to keep it from Andy.

Andy then went back home to Seattle, preparing for a medical course of chemotherapy and radiation. Once he arrived, he found that an anonymous tipster had managed to get his Medicaid shut down. It took us two weeks to get him back in the system. Andy had anaplastic pancreatic cancer and was again forced to wait weeks for follow up care.

By this time, Andy's stalkers had set up a website. It purported to be concerned that the funds for his surgery were raised fraudulently. Thankfully by this time, Andy spent very little time on line. But it wore on his core advocates who were repeatedly attacked, defamed and baited.

We were threatened with everything from the FBI to the Washington State Attorney General. And of course, because our first concern was Andy, his attitude and his care, our response had to be measured or none. On a good day, we didn't want Andy logging in and reading that he would soon be visited by federal agents to answer for the mythical hundreds of thousands of dollars we'd supposedly raised.

As late as a week before Andy died, we couldn't keep this poisonous campaign from him. One of the last times he felt well enough to log into to his email, he found a multipage denunciation, supposedly being filed with his state's attorney general. He called me, not so much in a panic. Panic was no longer a speed Andy had. He called me in despair, because he could no longer fight the barrage of hatred being leveled at him. I don't remember what I said to him but I hope it helped for a moment.

The attack from the Bush right never paused, not even through the agony of Andy's last days. Not at all.
Even the fact of his death is being disputed. Two days after his passing, his advocates are still being harassed, still receiving anonymous hate calls, It was a scam. The friend planning his service was visited by two men impersonating sheriffs on the morning after Andy passed. They were there to ask about fraud, they said.

Andy's physical death has not stopped the attack, has not slowed the hatred, has not stemmed the steady stream of intimidation.

But, we're not afraid. And we take up Andy's work to secure our elections in his honor and in your face.

Bio: Elizabeth Ferrari is a writer and a family
mental health advocate in San Francisco, CA. She is
married to comedian Doug Ferrari.

"Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will." -- Frederick Douglass

1 | 2