Los Angeles police release video of armed confrontation that wounded author, wife of Weezer bassist
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'Ma'am, we're trying to help you. Put the gun down,' a voice says. 'You're going to get shot. It's the police.'
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An officer indicates that the woman has cocked a gun — 'Oh, she racked it' — immediately before the sound of at least six shots rings out.
In a separate segment of silent surveillance video from Lauren's backyard, she can be seen exiting the home barefoot and carrying a pistol in her right hand. Another segment shows Lauren from behind, apparently raising a gun that is briefly visible. Dirt kicks up near her feet, and she turns and walks toward a doorway to the house.
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Further body camera video shows Lauren lying prone in the middle of a residential road as police place handcuffs behind her back, while noting that she has a wound on her arm.
Lauren's published works include two bestselling memoirs — 2010s 'Some Girls: My Life in a Harem' and 2015's 'Everything You Ever Wanted.'
Weezer is a Los Angeles-based band, beloved especially for its 1994 record unofficially known as the 'Blue Album,' with songs including 'Say It Ain't So.' Shriner joined the band in the early 2000s.
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Chicago Tribune
36 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Officials are investigating the cause of a Pennsylvania steel plant explosion that killed 2
CLAIRTON, Pa. — Investigators are working to determine the cause of an explosion that rocked a steel plant outside Pittsburgh, leaving two dead and more than 10 others injured, including a person who was rescued from the smoldering rubble after hours of being trapped. The explosion sent black smoke spiraling into the midday Monday sky in the Mon Valley, a region of the state synonymous with steel for more than a century. Allegheny County Emergency Services said a fire at the plant in Clairton started late Monday morning. Officials said they had not isolated the cause of the blast. The rumbling from the explosion, and several smaller blasts that followed, jolted the community about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southeast of Pittsburgh. Amy Sowers, who was sitting on her porch less than a mile from the plant, felt her house shake. 'I could see smoke from my driveway,' she said. 'We heard ambulances and fire trucks from every direction.' Sowers, 45, grew up in Clairton and has seen several incidents at the plant over the years. 'Lives were lost again,' Sowers said. 'How many more lives are going to have to be lost until something happens?' At a news conference, Scott Buckiso, U.S. Steel's chief manufacturing officer, did not give details about the damage or casualties, and said they were still trying to determine what happened. He said the company, now a subsidiary of Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp., is working with authorities. The county medical examiner's office identified one of the victims as Timothy Quinn, 39. The Allegheny County Police Department said five people were hospitalized in critical but stable condition Monday night, and five others had been treated and released. Multiple individuals also were treated for injuries at the scene, but the department said it did not have an exact number. According to the company, the plant has approximately 1,400 workers. In a statement, the United Steelworkers, which represents many of the Clairton plant's workers, said it had representatives on the ground at the plant and would work to ensure there is a thorough investigation. David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group that has sued U.S. Steel over pollution, said there needed to be 'a full, independent investigation into the causes of this latest catastrophe and a re-evaluation as to whether the Clairton plant is fit to keep operating.' U.S. Steel CEO David B. Burritt said the company would investigate. It's not the first explosion at the plant. A maintenance worker was killed in a blast in September 2009. In July 2010, another explosion injured 14 employees and six contractors. According to online OSHA records of workplace fatalities, the last death at the plant was in 2014, when a worker was burned and died after falling into a trench. After the 2010 explosion, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined U.S. Steel and a subcontractor $175,000 for safety violations. U.S. Steel appealed its citations and fines, which were later reduced under a settlement agreement. In February, a problem with a battery at the plant led to a 'buildup of combustible material' that ignited, causing an audible 'boom,' officials said. Two workers received first aid treatment but were not seriously injured. The plant, a massive industrial facility along the Monongahela River, is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major U.S. Steel plants in Pennsylvania. The plant converts coal to coke, a key component in the steelmaking process. To make coke, coal is baked in special ovens for hours at high temperatures to remove impurities that could otherwise weaken steel. The process creates what's known as coke gas — made up of a lethal mix of methane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. The county health department initially told residents within 1 mile of the plant to remain indoors and close all windows and doors, but lifted the advisory later Monday. It said its monitors didn't detect levels of soot or sulfur dioxide above federal standards. U.S. Steel has been a symbol of industrialization since it was founded in 1901 by J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and others. It's been the icon of the American steel industry that once dominated the world market until Japan, then China, became preeminent steelmakers over the past 40 years. In June, U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel announced they had finalized a 'historic partnership,' a deal that gives the U.S. government a say in some matters and comes a year and a half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15 billion buyout of the iconic American steelmaker. The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after U.S. Steel shareholders approved it.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘I'm sitting behind the bench': Inside sports' escalating stalking problem
On Valentine's Day 2023, Latyr Thiaw, a 19-year-old maintenance worker living in Washington, D.C., saw a picture of UCLA women's basketball player Kiki Rice on Instagram. He then watched interviews with her on YouTube and felt something 'magnetic' between them. She reminded him of a character from 'Avatar: The Last Airbender.' In the months that followed, Thiaw sent Rice dozens of unanswered messages on social media, and he changed the background screen on his phone to a picture of her. Then, in mid-December 2023, Thiaw flew to Los Angeles, rented a U-Haul van, parking near the UCLA campus for days and sleeping in the back. On several occasions, Thiaw stood outside of UCLA's practice facility waiting for Rice. Once, he sat on a bench for hours alongside a glass vase of white and red roses and a handwritten card that read, 'Kiki Carroll Rice once upon a time you caught my sight through a life full of strife…you got me through the night…I want do something kosmik with you that will be enough till the end of time.' On Dec. 21, as Rice warmed up for the UCLA/Hawaii game in Pauley Pavilion, she felt eyes on her. It was Thiaw — in the second row, standing up, wearing a suit, and staring intently at her. Soon after, UCLA banned Thiaw from all its facilities and events, and the athletic department posted a flyer with a photograph of Thiaw that read, 'Please do not engage with this individual or allow entry into any athletic facility.' Despite the ban, Thiaw attempted to attend another UCLA game by entering through the student-only section and, according to a police report, he pushed past security in an attempt to make contact with Rice. He was arrested and charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with stalking and two counts of resisting a police officer. He pleaded not guilty to those three charges, but his behavior continued. 'I do not know Latyr, I do not have any relationship with him, and his incessant efforts to track me down and confront me cause me to worry for my safety and are deeply disturbing,' Rice stated in her request for a restraining order in January 2024. 'I have no protection when I am off campus or at away games.' More American athletes and other celebrities have been stalked and attacked in the last decade than in all previous U.S. history, said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and one of the first to study the stalking of public figures. Dietz made that proclamation in 1994, the year after tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a fan obsessed with her opponent, Steffi Graf. More than 30 years later, the trend line Dietz spoke of has continued to spike. 'I do know with certainty that new media have increased dramatically the number of threats and stalking incidents' of athletes and celebrities, particularly women, Dietz told The Athletic. There are currently no scientific studies around the stalking of athletes, and no law enforcement agency is publicly tracking such cases. The Athletic identified at least 52 stalking cases involving athletes, male and female, since 2020, but that list is incomplete. Many stalking cases go unreported in the media and even to police. But even a partial list indicates an alarming pattern. Female tennis players Iga Świątek, Yulia Putintseva and Emma Raducanu dealt with stalking incidents this year. Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and other women's basketball players were subjected to stalking that led them to fear for their safety. Gymnasts Gabby Thomas, Simone Biles and Livvy Dunne have been targeted; American hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones had someone break into her training facility and attempt to do the same at her home, one of three men she said have stalked her in recent years. Among the male victims are former Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald; a woman has harassed and stalked him and his family for years. Another former NFL player, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, was stalked by a woman with a 'bizarre and extreme obsession,' according to a restraining order application. She changed her last name to his and used it to access the gated community where his family lives. A woman nicknamed 'devil baby' pleaded guilty to stalking then-Chelsea players Mason Mount and Billy Gilmour. Stalking has become part of the sports landscape: Matches are being interrupted, players are acknowledging that fixated strangers are impacting their mental health and performance, leagues and colleges are directing more money and resources toward security. On social media, athletes share stories, ask for advice, connect and commiserate. Consider what Rice said in March about her ordeal: 'It's unfortunate that a lot of us players have to go through that. … I think just knowing that as the sport continues to have a bigger platform and is broadcasted on a higher level, those instances are gonna increase.' That Thiaw's fixation with Rice began after he saw her on social media is consistent with many stalking incidents. As athletes chronicle their careers and lives, often to promote their sport, they increase the odds that someone will become dangerously obsessed with them. A string of strange posts and comments on Facebook and TikTok was one of the first indicators that 40-year-old Robert Cole Parmalee, a resident of Grants Pass, Ore., had become fixated on Bueckers, then a University of Connecticut senior. On social media, Parmalee professed his love for Bueckers and his desire to marry her. One TikTok caption read: 'And if I cannot live with a woman of my choosing, (Paige), then I will choose to die, and I will choose to take all of you that pose me, oppose us, to hell, and return, king…I love you (Paige), if you allow them to touch you, you allow them to die.' Online fan accounts began tagging Bueckers in an attempt to warn her. In August 2024, Parmalee was arrested by Connecticut State Police while walking alongside a highway on an unrelated warrant out of Oregon. Prior to his arrest, he posted on social media that he was coming to propose to Bueckers. Bueckers told UConn police she felt 'the need to look over her shoulder more often in large groups' and 'worried about the safety of herself as well as her family members and basketball teammates.' In September, Parmalee was rearrested and charged with breach of peace, electronic stalking, and harassment. In December, he pleaded guilty to a stalking charge and received a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation, during which time he is barred from Connecticut and any arenas, hotels and practice facilities where the UConn women's basketball team is present. The WNBA also barred him from all arenas and practice facilities. A protective order is in place until Jan. 4, 2064. This January, a 55-year-old Texas man, Michael Lewis, was arrested and charged with stalking Clark, the Indiana Fever star. Lewis sent a series of sexually violent messages and threats to Clark via social media before he drove 13 hours to Indianapolis with the 'intent to be in close proximity' to her. 'Been driving around your house 3x a day,' one message read, according to court documents. 'But don't call the law just yet.' 'I'm getting tickets. I'm sitting behind the bench,' read another. An implicit or explicit threat was also made 'with the intent to place Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual battery,' prosecutors wrote in the Marion County Superior Court filing. Clark told police she feared for her safety and had even begun to alter her appearance in public. In late July, Lewis was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing Clark. There is currently a no-contact order in place, and Lewis is banned from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Fever play home games, and Hinkle Fieldhouse, the team's former arena. 'No matter how prominent a figure you are, this case shows that online harassment can quickly escalate to actual threats of physical violence,' Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement. 'It takes a lot of courage for women to come forward in these cases, which is why many don't.' Women's basketball has had to quickly adapt as the sport's surging popularity has increased the risk to its players. The University of Iowa, Clark's alma mater, beefed up security for women's basketball home games from 2022 to 2024 as Clark rose to become the most popular women's player in history. During Clark's sophomore season, security expenditures for women's basketball home games reached $153,780. During Clark's final season, it was $466,169, according to public records. In 2023, the NCAA hired an outside firm to track social media interactions directed at coaches, referees and players. 'If the vendor who's running this program sees really nasty stuff coming at somebody, we notify the platforms,' NCAA president Charlie Baker said in March. 'And the platforms, generally speaking, will block those people and take them down.' In some cases, the NCAA has forwarded communications to law enforcement for follow-up. But there are more than 90,000 female college athletes just at the Division I level, spread across 365 schools. It is impossible to institute all-encompassing protective measures across such a vast landscape. How, for example, could the University of Colorado have prevented a then 43-year-old man from downloading images of some of its female cross-country runners and combining them with pornographic images, and then messaging those runners about how he was stalking them and planning to rape, torture and kill them? (That ordeal, which occurred in 2015-16, led to the man being sentenced to more than 14 years in federal prison.) After swarms of young men with posters and a full-sized cutout of Livvy Dunne disrupted LSU's gymnastics season opener in 2023 at the University of Utah, LSU amped up its security at away meets, which included creating a perimeter when the team boarded its bus. But Dunne is also among several female athletes who recently spoke about men finding out their flight information and then aggressively accosting them at various airports. You can't create a perimeter around someone's entire life. Women's tennis and golf are perhaps the professional sports that have grappled with this issue the longest. While the tennis cases — involving Seles, Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova and others — have been well chronicled, golf's struggles with fixated individuals have been less spotlighted. Among the incidents reported: A former caddie for Michelle McGann sent over 30 packages professing his love for her. Once, at Michelle Wie's sunrise practice session, security spotted a man in a powder blue suit and floppy hat who had taken a bus from Iowa to Portland to propose to the golfer. And, a man tried to break into Morgan Pressel's gated community in Boca Raton, Fla., after claiming Jack Nicklaus and the CIA had instructed him to speak with her. Historically, the LPGA has assigned plainclothes police officers to specific players, but more recently the organization has used specialized security firms, often run by former U.S. Secret Service agents. It's not uncommon for photos of individuals of interest to be posted at all tournament entry gates and security officials look for red flags: aggression in the autograph area, requests for an athlete's used clothing and attempts to take up-skirt photos, according to Scott Stewart, who works for TorchStone Global, an international risk mitigation firm used by the LPGA and other sports leagues. 'Golf is different than the other sports because spectators have access to players before, during and after we play,' said Rick Pano, father and caddie of LPGA player Alexa Pano. 'The NFL, Major League Baseball, you have distance, but in golf you don't.' About five years ago, a red button was added to the LPGA Player Portal, a digital hub for all tournament details. One press of the button, and security is immediately deployed to the player's location. After Seles, the WTA posted security guards on courts at events. Security tightened even further in 2008 when the league announced players, parents, agents, coaches and other entourage members must agree to criminal background checks for full tournament access. And in 2024, the WTA set up a monitoring service for social media threats. Just this March, Świątek was given extra security protection during the Miami Open after being verbally attacked at practice by a man who had harassed her on social media. The WNBA has also amplified and modernized its security protocols. Not long after the Clark and Bueckers incidents, the league assembled an offseason task force, which includes monitoring of social media to detect threats and added security measures at the league and team levels. Other leagues and organizations have taken similar steps. Even though all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have had anti-stalking laws in place since the mid-1990s, most statutes designed to address and prohibit stalking are toothless, and prosecution of the crime falls almost entirely on the victim. 'Restraining and protective orders become sort of your first line of defense,' said Carlos Cuevas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University. 'But one of the difficulties is that the burden of protection is so much on the victim. They have to report it, they have to get the restraining order, it's temporary. They have to go in there and go back and make it permanent. And then in most states or most places, that needs to get renewed every year, so there's a lot of, sort of, labor, if you will, that the victim has to engage in to protect themselves.' Legal documents such as protective orders are often only a paper shield. Forty to 50 percent of protective orders are violated, according to the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center. Some studies even found there was an increase in physical or psychological abuse after an order was granted. 'The criminal penalties for stalking are oftentimes not that severe,' said Dr. J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist who consults on public figure stalking cases. 'Then they're back in action, and we know that … repetition, reoffense is very high.' For Rice, the temporary restraining order granted by the court in January had little effect. The summer of 2024 was filled with messages from Thiaw, in direct violation of the order. 'THEY ARE TRYING TO TELL ME THAT I DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO LOVE KIRA KIKI CARROLL RICE,' reads a portion of an email sent to Rice's email address in June. 'THE DAY I GOT ARRESTED I SAID THIS STORY WILL BE TOLD AT THE DINING TABLE AT OUR WEDDING, AND TO OUR CHILDREN,' reads one from July. On Oct. 17, 2024, the court issued a more permanent, five-year restraining order against Thiaw. At the trial, Thiaw testified, 'I would like to be your husband one day. And I'm not some love bird. I have already thought of strategies on how to be your dedicated husband.' In the weeks since then, Thiaw, who is now 22, has filed a series of motion papers in an effort to terminate the restraining order, citing 'no credible evidence.' In an email, Thiaw wrote to The Athletic: 'My entire ordeal began with a rightful ticket — one I obtained legally. That act was distorted by false statements and misrepresentations in a police report designed to criminalize me without cause.' In June, he successfully completed a mental health diversion program, after which the criminal case against him was dismissed. (The civil restraining order case is independent from the criminal matter.) This month, Rice had to submit an additional plea to the court for the continuance of the restraining order against Thiaw. In opposition to Thiaw's request to remove the restraining order, Rice submitted the following declaration: 'Latyr's relentless stalking and harassment caused me significant emotional distress. … I have just started to be able to live my life again without the constant worry of Latyr disturbing my peace. … I am forced to relive the stress I experienced over the last two years which has triggered a fear that my peace will be greatly disturbed knowing that he could contact me at any time or appear wherever I may be.' Just last week, the court denied Thiaw's request, and the restraining order will remain in place until October 2029. Athletes who have been stalked talk about the lasting impact it has on their lives. (Many choose not to speak about it at all due to fear of copycats, or a refusal to give their stalkers more power or notoriety.) After her stabbing, Seles was out of tennis for nearly 28 months. She fell into a deep depression and developed an eating disorder. 'And yes, the physical scars healed in a few months. But the emotional damage cut much deeper and I was plunged into a fog of darkness and depression that I couldn't see my way out of,' Seles wrote of the attack in her 2009 autobiography. Eleven years after a man tried to abduct her with duct tape, two loaded guns and a wooden club, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson told ABC in 2019 that the experience still haunts her. After her three-year ordeal with a stalker, Olympic runner Emily Infeld remains careful with what she posts on social media, no longer receives mail at her condo, and still keeps a metal bar by the front door. The fear among women's sports activists is that any behavioral changes female athletes make could stymie the momentum women's sports has built in recent years. 'There's a long history of when women's sport becomes popular, visible, lucrative, that we see a plethora of ways in which women's value, popularity, and visibility is undermined, marginalized, silenced and erased,' said Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport. 'I think harassment and stalking is one exemplar of that.' — 's Gabby Herzig contributed to this report. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Indiana Fever, Dallas Wings, UCLA Bruins, Connecticut Huskies, WNBA, Golf, Women's College Basketball, Culture, Olympics, Tennis, A1: Must-Read Stories, women's college basketball, Women's College Sports, Women's Golf, Women's Olympics, Women's Tennis 2025 The Athletic Media Company
New York Times
5 hours ago
- New York Times
‘I'm sitting behind the bench': Inside sports' escalating stalking problem
On Valentine's Day 2023, Latyr Thiaw, a 19-year-old maintenance worker living in Washington, D.C., saw a picture of UCLA women's basketball player Kiki Rice on Instagram. He then watched interviews with her on YouTube and felt something 'magnetic' between them. She reminded him of a character from 'Avatar: The Last Airbender.' Advertisement In the months that followed, Thiaw sent Rice dozens of unanswered messages on social media, and he changed the background screen on his phone to a picture of her. Then, in mid-December 2023, Thiaw flew to Los Angeles, rented a U-Haul van, parking near the UCLA campus for days and sleeping in the back. On several occasions, Thiaw stood outside of UCLA's practice facility waiting for Rice. Once, he sat on a bench for hours alongside a glass vase of white and red roses and a handwritten card that read, 'Kiki Carroll Rice once upon a time you caught my sight through a life full of strife…you got me through the night…I want do something kosmik with you that will be enough till the end of time.' On Dec. 21, as Rice warmed up for the UCLA/Hawaii game in Pauley Pavilion, she felt eyes on her. It was Thiaw — in the second row, standing up, wearing a suit, and staring intently at her. Soon after, UCLA banned Thiaw from all its facilities and events, and the athletic department posted a flyer with a photograph of Thiaw that read, 'Please do not engage with this individual or allow entry into any athletic facility.' Despite the ban, Thiaw attempted to attend another UCLA game by entering through the student-only section and, according to a police report, he pushed past security in an attempt to make contact with Rice. He was arrested and charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with stalking and two counts of resisting a police officer. He pleaded not guilty to those three charges, but his behavior continued. 'I do not know Latyr, I do not have any relationship with him, and his incessant efforts to track me down and confront me cause me to worry for my safety and are deeply disturbing,' Rice stated in her request for a restraining order in January 2024. 'I have no protection when I am off campus or at away games.' Advertisement More American athletes and other celebrities have been stalked and attacked in the last decade than in all previous U.S. history, said Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist and one of the first to study the stalking of public figures. Dietz made that proclamation in 1994, the year after tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed during a match by a fan obsessed with her opponent, Steffi Graf. More than 30 years later, the trend line Dietz spoke of has continued to spike. 'I do know with certainty that new media have increased dramatically the number of threats and stalking incidents' of athletes and celebrities, particularly women, Dietz told The Athletic. There are currently no scientific studies around the stalking of athletes, and no law enforcement agency is publicly tracking such cases. The Athletic identified at least 52 stalking cases involving athletes, male and female, since 2020, but that list is incomplete. Many stalking cases go unreported in the media and even to police. But even a partial list indicates an alarming pattern. Female tennis players Iga Świątek, Yulia Putintseva and Emma Raducanu dealt with stalking incidents this year. Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and other women's basketball players were subjected to stalking that led them to fear for their safety. Gymnasts Gabby Thomas, Simone Biles and Livvy Dunne have been targeted; American hurdler and bobsledder Lolo Jones had someone break into her training facility and attempt to do the same at her home, one of three men she said have stalked her in recent years. Among the male victims are former Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald; a woman has harassed and stalked him and his family for years. Another former NFL player, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, was stalked by a woman with a 'bizarre and extreme obsession,' according to a restraining order application. She changed her last name to his and used it to access the gated community where his family lives. A woman nicknamed 'devil baby' pleaded guilty to stalking then-Chelsea players Mason Mount and Billy Gilmour. Advertisement Stalking has become part of the sports landscape: Matches are being interrupted, players are acknowledging that fixated strangers are impacting their mental health and performance, leagues and colleges are directing more money and resources toward security. On social media, athletes share stories, ask for advice, connect and commiserate. Consider what Rice said in March about her ordeal: 'It's unfortunate that a lot of us players have to go through that. … I think just knowing that as the sport continues to have a bigger platform and is broadcasted on a higher level, those instances are gonna increase.' That Thiaw's fixation with Rice began after he saw her on social media is consistent with many stalking incidents. As athletes chronicle their careers and lives, often to promote their sport, they increase the odds that someone will become dangerously obsessed with them. A string of strange posts and comments on Facebook and TikTok was one of the first indicators that 40-year-old Robert Cole Parmalee, a resident of Grants Pass, Ore., had become fixated on Bueckers, then a University of Connecticut senior. On social media, Parmalee professed his love for Bueckers and his desire to marry her. One TikTok caption read: 'And if I cannot live with a woman of my choosing, (Paige), then I will choose to die, and I will choose to take all of you that pose me, oppose us, to hell, and return, king…I love you (Paige), if you allow them to touch you, you allow them to die.' Online fan accounts began tagging Bueckers in an attempt to warn her. In August 2024, Parmalee was arrested by Connecticut State Police while walking alongside a highway on an unrelated warrant out of Oregon. Prior to his arrest, he posted on social media that he was coming to propose to Bueckers. Bueckers told UConn police she felt 'the need to look over her shoulder more often in large groups' and 'worried about the safety of herself as well as her family members and basketball teammates.' Advertisement In September, Parmalee was rearrested and charged with breach of peace, electronic stalking, and harassment. In December, he pleaded guilty to a stalking charge and received a one-year suspended sentence and three years of probation, during which time he is barred from Connecticut and any arenas, hotels and practice facilities where the UConn women's basketball team is present. The WNBA also barred him from all arenas and practice facilities. A protective order is in place until Jan. 4, 2064. This January, a 55-year-old Texas man, Michael Lewis, was arrested and charged with stalking Clark, the Indiana Fever star. Lewis sent a series of sexually violent messages and threats to Clark via social media before he drove 13 hours to Indianapolis with the 'intent to be in close proximity' to her. 'Been driving around your house 3x a day,' one message read, according to court documents. 'But don't call the law just yet.' 'I'm getting tickets. I'm sitting behind the bench,' read another. An implicit or explicit threat was also made 'with the intent to place Caitlin Clark in reasonable fear of sexual battery,' prosecutors wrote in the Marion County Superior Court filing. Clark told police she feared for her safety and had even begun to alter her appearance in public. In late July, Lewis was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing Clark. There is currently a no-contact order in place, and Lewis is banned from Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the Fever play home games, and Hinkle Fieldhouse, the team's former arena. 'No matter how prominent a figure you are, this case shows that online harassment can quickly escalate to actual threats of physical violence,' Marion County prosecutor Ryan Mears said in a statement. 'It takes a lot of courage for women to come forward in these cases, which is why many don't.' Advertisement Women's basketball has had to quickly adapt as the sport's surging popularity has increased the risk to its players. The University of Iowa, Clark's alma mater, beefed up security for women's basketball home games from 2022 to 2024 as Clark rose to become the most popular women's player in history. During Clark's sophomore season, security expenditures for women's basketball home games reached $153,780. During Clark's final season, it was $466,169, according to public records. In 2023, the NCAA hired an outside firm to track social media interactions directed at coaches, referees and players. 'If the vendor who's running this program sees really nasty stuff coming at somebody, we notify the platforms,' NCAA president Charlie Baker said in March. 'And the platforms, generally speaking, will block those people and take them down.' In some cases, the NCAA has forwarded communications to law enforcement for follow-up. But there are more than 90,000 female college athletes just at the Division I level, spread across 365 schools. It is impossible to institute all-encompassing protective measures across such a vast landscape. How, for example, could the University of Colorado have prevented a then 43-year-old man from downloading images of some of its female cross-country runners and combining them with pornographic images, and then messaging those runners about how he was stalking them and planning to rape, torture and kill them? (That ordeal, which occurred in 2015-16, led to the man being sentenced to more than 14 years in federal prison.) After swarms of young men with posters and a full-sized cutout of Livvy Dunne disrupted LSU's gymnastics season opener in 2023 at the University of Utah, LSU amped up its security at away meets, which included creating a perimeter when the team boarded its bus. But Dunne is also among several female athletes who recently spoke about men finding out their flight information and then aggressively accosting them at various airports. You can't create a perimeter around someone's entire life. Women's tennis and golf are perhaps the professional sports that have grappled with this issue the longest. While the tennis cases — involving Seles, Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova and others — have been well chronicled, golf's struggles with fixated individuals have been less spotlighted. Among the incidents reported: A former caddie for Michelle McGann sent over 30 packages professing his love for her. Once, at Michelle Wie's sunrise practice session, security spotted a man in a powder blue suit and floppy hat who had taken a bus from Iowa to Portland to propose to the golfer. And, a man tried to break into Morgan Pressel's gated community in Boca Raton, Fla., after claiming Jack Nicklaus and the CIA had instructed him to speak with her. Advertisement Historically, the LPGA has assigned plainclothes police officers to specific players, but more recently the organization has used specialized security firms, often run by former U.S. Secret Service agents. It's not uncommon for photos of individuals of interest to be posted at all tournament entry gates and security officials look for red flags: aggression in the autograph area, requests for an athlete's used clothing and attempts to take up-skirt photos, according to Scott Stewart, who works for TorchStone Global, an international risk mitigation firm used by the LPGA and other sports leagues. 'Golf is different than the other sports because spectators have access to players before, during and after we play,' said Rick Pano, father and caddie of LPGA player Alexa Pano. 'The NFL, Major League Baseball, you have distance, but in golf you don't.' About five years ago, a red button was added to the LPGA Player Portal, a digital hub for all tournament details. One press of the button, and security is immediately deployed to the player's location. After Seles, the WTA posted security guards on courts at events. Security tightened even further in 2008 when the league announced players, parents, agents, coaches and other entourage members must agree to criminal background checks for full tournament access. And in 2024, the WTA set up a monitoring service for social media threats. Just this March, Świątek was given extra security protection during the Miami Open after being verbally attacked at practice by a man who had harassed her on social media. The WNBA has also amplified and modernized its security protocols. Not long after the Clark and Bueckers incidents, the league assembled an offseason task force, which includes monitoring of social media to detect threats and added security measures at the league and team levels. Other leagues and organizations have taken similar steps. Even though all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government have had anti-stalking laws in place since the mid-1990s, most statutes designed to address and prohibit stalking are toothless, and prosecution of the crime falls almost entirely on the victim. Advertisement 'Restraining and protective orders become sort of your first line of defense,' said Carlos Cuevas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University. 'But one of the difficulties is that the burden of protection is so much on the victim. They have to report it, they have to get the restraining order, it's temporary. They have to go in there and go back and make it permanent. And then in most states or most places, that needs to get renewed every year, so there's a lot of, sort of, labor, if you will, that the victim has to engage in to protect themselves.' Legal documents such as protective orders are often only a paper shield. Forty to 50 percent of protective orders are violated, according to the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center. Some studies even found there was an increase in physical or psychological abuse after an order was granted. 'The criminal penalties for stalking are oftentimes not that severe,' said Dr. J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist who consults on public figure stalking cases. 'Then they're back in action, and we know that … repetition, reoffense is very high.' For Rice, the temporary restraining order granted by the court in January had little effect. The summer of 2024 was filled with messages from Thiaw, in direct violation of the order. 'THEY ARE TRYING TO TELL ME THAT I DO NOT HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO LOVE KIRA KIKI CARROLL RICE,' reads a portion of an email sent to Rice's email address in June. 'THE DAY I GOT ARRESTED I SAID THIS STORY WILL BE TOLD AT THE DINING TABLE AT OUR WEDDING, AND TO OUR CHILDREN,' reads one from July. On Oct. 17, 2024, the court issued a more permanent, five-year restraining order against Thiaw. At the trial, Thiaw testified, 'I would like to be your husband one day. And I'm not some love bird. I have already thought of strategies on how to be your dedicated husband.' Advertisement In the weeks since then, Thiaw, who is now 22, has filed a series of motion papers in an effort to terminate the restraining order, citing 'no credible evidence.' In an email, Thiaw wrote to The Athletic: 'My entire ordeal began with a rightful ticket — one I obtained legally. That act was distorted by false statements and misrepresentations in a police report designed to criminalize me without cause.' In June, he successfully completed a mental health diversion program, after which the criminal case against him was dismissed. (The civil restraining order case is independent from the criminal matter.) This month, Rice had to submit an additional plea to the court for the continuance of the restraining order against Thiaw. In opposition to Thiaw's request to remove the restraining order, Rice submitted the following declaration: 'Latyr's relentless stalking and harassment caused me significant emotional distress. … I have just started to be able to live my life again without the constant worry of Latyr disturbing my peace. … I am forced to relive the stress I experienced over the last two years which has triggered a fear that my peace will be greatly disturbed knowing that he could contact me at any time or appear wherever I may be.' Just last week, the court denied Thiaw's request, and the restraining order will remain in place until October 2029. Athletes who have been stalked talk about the lasting impact it has on their lives. (Many choose not to speak about it at all due to fear of copycats, or a refusal to give their stalkers more power or notoriety.) After her stabbing, Seles was out of tennis for nearly 28 months. She fell into a deep depression and developed an eating disorder. 'And yes, the physical scars healed in a few months. But the emotional damage cut much deeper and I was plunged into a fog of darkness and depression that I couldn't see my way out of,' Seles wrote of the attack in her 2009 autobiography. Advertisement Eleven years after a man tried to abduct her with duct tape, two loaded guns and a wooden club, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson told ABC in 2019 that the experience still haunts her. After her three-year ordeal with a stalker, Olympic runner Emily Infeld remains careful with what she posts on social media, no longer receives mail at her condo, and still keeps a metal bar by the front door. The fear among women's sports activists is that any behavioral changes female athletes make could stymie the momentum women's sports has built in recent years. 'There's a long history of when women's sport becomes popular, visible, lucrative, that we see a plethora of ways in which women's value, popularity, and visibility is undermined, marginalized, silenced and erased,' said Nicole LaVoi, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport. 'I think harassment and stalking is one exemplar of that.' — The Athletic's Gabby Herzig contributed to this report. (Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Sarah Stier / Getty Images, iStock) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle
