Kansas aims to strengthen stalking laws with focus on tracking devices

TOPEKA, Kan. — The stalking legal guidelines in Kansas might quickly be getting stronger.

A invoice filed this month would make it clear that monitoring units or monitoring machine knowledge could be added to the stalking standards.

It might additionally assist defend those that have restraining or safety orders by clarifying the legislation about monitoring units.

Final Could, the KSHB 41 I-Group uncovered the outdated legal guidelines in Kansas and Missouri when it got here to monitoring units.

The I-Group found greater than 20 different states had legal guidelines on the books about these units, however Kansas and Missouri didn’t.

The I-Group centered on a Lenexa double murder-suicide from February of 2022. Police stated an ex-boyfriend tracked Sara Beck with a GPS machine earlier than she and a good friend had been shot and killed.

KSHB investigator Cameron Taylor caught up with Sara’s father virtually a 12 months later.

“As a father, it’s type of arduous to not look inward, take a look at myself and ask myself, what did I do incorrect?,” stated Desmond Theel, Sara Beck’s father.

A invoice making its approach by way of the Kansas legislature would strengthen stalking legal guidelines.

Ed Klumpp, legislative liaison with the Kansas Sheriffs’ Affiliation, helped develop the invoice.

“Similar to any good factor, dangerous individuals will discover dangerous methods to make use of it and so we’ve received to always be on alert for that,” Klumpp stated.

Klumpp has heard from legislation enforcement businesses throughout the state together with Lenexa police.

They inform him they’re having issues with individuals utilizing monitoring units in home violence, stalking and violation of safety order instances.

“This isn’t a Johnson County downside. This isn’t a Sedgwick County downside. It’s a statewide downside and it wants a statewide answer,” Klumpp stated.

Chief Daybreak Layman, with the Lenexa Police Division, has considerations about monitoring units particularly after Sara’s case.

“I’m unhappy in the truth that our household right here in Lenexa and this entire incident that occurred that it needed to occur, proper?” Layman stated. “That legislation enforcement wasn’t in a position to do something sooner in that case to forestall that.”

Layman labored with state officers to take steps to strengthen the stalking legislation.

“I believe it’s a very good begin, proper?” Layman stated.

Virtually a 12 months in the past, the KSHB 41 I-Group revealed no less than 23 states and the District of Columbia had addressed privateness considerations when it got here to somebody monitoring one other individual with out them understanding.

It’s now as much as no less than 26 states, in keeping with the Nationwide Convention of State Legislatures.

Following our investigation, Kansas might quickly be a part of the 11 states that ban location monitoring of their stalking legal guidelines.

Though his daughter’s case could assist change state legislation, Theel hopes for an additional legislation that’s much more responsive.

“Now we have to get it to the place individuals reply instantly and take it critically as a result of take a look at what it escalated to,” Theel stated.

In Missouri, State Consultant Kemp Strickler from Lee’s Summit launched a invoice about this difficulty.

The invoice is somewhat totally different than the one launched in Kansas. It might ban somebody from placing a monitoring machine on somebody’s automobile with out the proprietor’s consent.

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