Gavin de Becker is widely regarded as the nation's leading expert on public figure safety. A three-time Presidential appointee, he designed the assessment system used for threats to Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, members of Congress, the Governor of California, and many others.

His 46-member firm provides consultation to many leading media figures and entertainment industry companies, and they have overseen the assessment of more than 18,000 cases of stalking and unwanted pursuit. Mr. de Becker has worked on the most prominent stalking cases, including providing testimony against Arthur Jackson, the assailant of Theresa Saldana, and assisting Marcia Clark in the prosecution of Robert Bardo, the murderer of actress Rebecca Schaeffer.

Mr. de Becker contributed to and wrote the introduction for To Have or To Harm, the first book on stalking (Warner Books). After leading a national campaign to keep the assailant of Theresa Saldana in secure custody, he wrote California's threat-trespass statute, which was signed into law by the Governor in 1991, and more than anyone else, Mr. de Becker has put these issues on the national agenda.

There have been more attacks on public figures in the last 25 years than in the 175 years prior, and research indicates that as many as 150,000 Americans are focused inappropriately on some media figure. While those facts may be alarming, I also have some encouraging words from the last 25 years of study: situations involving unwanted pursuit are highly manageable, and you already possess the greatest single resource for meeting the challenge: your own intuition.

To be effective, however, intuition must be informed, and this calls for countering the many common misunderstandings and the conventional "wisdom" that isn't always wise.

First, be aware that physical attacks against media figures are very rare events; unwanted and disturbing pursuit of media figures, however, is not rare. Our popular culture encourages the myth that members of the general public personally know radio and TV talk show hosts, TV actors and news anchors. Another myth tells people that persistence will pay off; if they just stay with it, they believe, they'll eventually meet, befriend, collaborate with, replace, or marry the object of their interest. Further, mental illness in America is increasing at the same time that the presentation of media figures as intimate characters in our lives is reaching a new high. All of this means that many (and any) media figures might become the focus of unwanted attention. Your challenge, accordingly, is not just to avoid harm, for statistics alone offer you substantial protection no matter what you do. Rather, the challenge is to avoid unwanted encounters. In so doing, you save yourself bother, privacy intrusion, discomfort and risk.

Next, direct threats are not the most significant indicator of hazard to media figures. (Unlike threats to media figures from strangers, threats among intimates [husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend] are very significant pre-incident indicators. Such threats should be taken seriously because a female media figure is far more likely to be harmed by a violently-inclined and controlling spouse or boyfriend than by an obsessed "fan.")

The myth that those likely to do harm will threaten first has led many to wrongly believe that inappropriate communications that don't contain a threat are not significant. In fact, the opposite is true: people who make direct threats are actually less likely to pursue an encounter with a media figure than those whose communications contain love-sickness, exaggerated adoration, themes of rejection, the belief that a relationship is "meant to be," plans to travel or meet, the belief that the media figure owes them something, among many other themes. In contrast with conventional wisdom, the fact is that only one modern age public figure attacker directly threatened his victim first, and he's one you've likely never even heard of (Samuel Byck, who attempted to fly a passenger jet into the White House). People who ignore communications simply because they don't contain a threat are ignoring the very information most relevant to safety.

If people don't threaten first, then how can I say the problem is manageable?

Because nearly 100% of public figure attackers communicated inappropriately with some media figure first, though not always the one they attacked. This startling fact means that the collection, retention, evaluation and sharing of information about those who communicate inappropriately or pursue unwanted encounters is the single most important precaution the industry (and individual industry companies) can take.

Unwanted pursuers invariably make themselves known to someone; the challenge is to be sure you will learn of it, and this can only happen if you tell producers and other employers that you are interested in--and relying upon--notification about unusual calls, letters, visits, etc. Also be sure that agents, lawyers and others are aware of your concern so that if they become aware of such pursuit or communications, they'll inform you. Everyone involved will benefit from understanding that communications and unwanted visits might be part of a pattern, and not just an isolated incident. Along these lines, we ask clients to seek a Safety & Privacy Clause in their contracts. This formalizes their reliance on such notification, and makes clear that they wish to be informed. (I hope someday such clauses will be part of the standard contract.)

As with any other industry, employers in the media have a duty to provide a safe work environment, and most companies are sensitive to these issues. If you receive alarming or inappropriate communications, your employers are likely to be familiar with how to have them professionally evaluated (and many have contracts with our office for this service). You also have a duty in all this: to share your concern. Employers cannot be expected to help you with problems they don't know you have. And remember, alarming or intrusive encounters at work would affect others as well as you, so all parties are best served by effective mutual communication.

John Lennon was stalked for months before being shot in 1980.
Rebecca Schaeffer's killer thought he knew her because she was "on TV all the time."

First, let's touch on what you should not do. You should not confront the person. Efforts to change the pursuer's mind, to "cure" him of wrong thoughts, or to put a cost on his conduct are rarely fruitful if the person is suffering from some delusion. In short, straight talk does not work with crooked people. Your efforts should be applied to the people whose conduct you can reliably influence: you and the people you work with.

There are rarely simple, practical interventions that can be applied to safely stop a person from unwanted pursuit. Police intervention, as appealing as the idea may be, applies only to those very few cases which involve violations of law (none of the actual attackers in the media age detectably broke the law in connection with their victims prior to their attacks).

Temporary Restraining Orders are not right for all cases, and may even provoke escalation. They should only be undertaken after a professional evaluation of the situation. As opposed to assuming some intervention will make the problem go away (which is rarely the case), your challenge is to make yourself sufficiently unavailable so that a pursuer will turn his attention elsewhere. But do obsessed stalkers ever give up? Absolutely.

Again in contrast with conventional wisdom (perhaps it should be called conventional unwisdom), most public figure pursuers, even those that are highly motivated and committed, do transfer to another target if they make no progress with one object of pursuit. Nearly all actual attackers, even those described in the media as "hopelessly obsessed" or "star-crossed," actually transferred targets. When I assisted Marcia Clark in prosecuting Robert Bardo, the man who killed Rebecca Schaeffer, we learned that he first stalked another actress, then two different singers, before finally settling on Rebecca Schaeffer. He gave up on the first person and could not successfully encounter the second (a client of our office); he perceived the third as having effective security, so he sought a target with "accessibility" (his word). When I interviewed him in prison recently, he told me that if all avenues of reaching Rebecca Schaeffer had been denied to him, he would have eventually transferred to someone else. But as he pursued her, he was encouraged and engaged by a personal reply to a letter he had sent the actress. He was also provoked by the efforts of studio security people to "discourage" him, proving again that intervention won't always have the desired result.

The Bardo case is another where many different people were aware of the inappropriate pursuit well in advance of his attack; had they shared the information with each other, they'd have quickly realized an alarming pattern. Finally, nobody shared the matter with Rebecca Schaeffer.

Many lessons were learned through this tragedy, but the greater tragedy is that not one was new. The hopeful message, however, is that if you avoid encountering, negotiating with or seeking to discourage your pursuer, in short, if you avoid engaging him, he is very likely to focus on someone else. I don't mean do nothing, far from it, but I do mean avoid strategies that give him attention, and apply strategies that give you insulation.

There are six things you can do to make you harder to find, and less likely to be selected by an unwanted pursuer in the first place."

If you have wide exposure, do not contribute any personal information to articles or profiles about you. Keep private such things as where you live, what you drive, places you frequent, etc. Don't do interviews or photo shoots at your home because this invariably provides information helpful to pursuers. As important, it also portrays you in an intimate and accessible way, communicating, in effect, that even your home is not off limits. Do not give out your actual home address to anyone except those people you want to visit you at home. Don't mix your home address with your work. Use a private Post Office Box for receiving mail and script deliveries. Once your home address is in the industry rolodex "network," it can be tricked out of someone. Most notably, your actual home address should not be on file at places where people would predictably seek it out (agents or managers' office, TV or radio studio, etc.). If your home address is hard to find, a pursuer is more likely to be detected in his efforts. Consider placing real property in a trust name which is different than your name; register cars to an address other than the home. Don't just automatically respond to fan mail. I advise that clients not respond to fan mail, except that which falls within a criteria they establish (letters from young people, handicapped, etc.). I realize that the practice of answering all fan mail is a long established protocol, and that to some people this is simply a required part of being well-known, but I submit that the practice is from another time and not appropriate to this one. Back in the days when Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were the only international media figures, answering 100,000 fan letters a year might have actually been relevant to their patronage; in other words, it served their careers. For people with large television audiences, say in the tens of millions, answering a few thousand letters a year simply isn't significant. Conversely, answering fan mail (particularly with personalized comments or salutations of love), is likely to encourage inappropriate attention and pursuit. Your fan mail from the general public should be reviewed to determine if it meets any of the criteria established by research to be significant. (There are too many themes or references to list here, but my office will be glad to send any AFTRA member a Criteria Sheet.) This will increase the likelihood of detecting those few who will actually pursue encounters. Be watchful that you are not followed from work sites; be aware of people "hanging around" TV and radio studios (and report them to site security personnel or management). Don't ignore your intuition; it is your natural guardian in matters of safety.