Reading time: 3 minutes, 5 seconds
Forensic mental health professionals will likely encounter claims of gang stalking. To distinguish whether such accounts are a result of a mental health disorder, clinicians need to understand the common features of gang stalking.
Gang stalking refers to allegations of surveillance, harassment, and general victimization by unknown agents. People who identify as victims of gang stalking (targeted individuals) allege that these gangs use covert and co-ordinated methods, advanced technological weapons, and mind control to harass them. Many targeted individuals believe that gang stalking is the work of the government or other state actors, which may cause them to launch lawsuits against the government or other perpetrators.
Courts tend to consider such beliefs to be irrational and likely delusional.
AI-generated image, Adobe Photoshop.
Drs. Emma Hamilton, Matthew W. Motley, and Collin Shumate discussed these topics during the November 14 session of the International Forensic Psychiatry Lecture Series. (You can watch a recording of the lecture online.)
People Reporting Gang Stalking
Self-reported victims often view an accumulation of frequent, random, benign events as deliberate, connected, and malicious. They say the goal is to discredit them, make them appear mentally ill, or encourage them to kill themselves.
Dr. Hamilton said the beliefs tend to be validated, reinforced, and shared through online forums. In correctional facilities, such reports can have a contagion effect when targeted individuals share their ideas with other inmates.
About 12 per cent of people who reported being stalked said it was by a group rather than an individual. These plaintiffs reported ongoing stalking by covert rather than overt methods. Compared with people who reported being stalked by an individual, they were less likely to be able to identify the stalkers and more likely to report a negative impact on their mental health.
Some complaints describe acts that could be considered torture, including the use of chemical weapons, directed energy weapons causing electric jolts, targeted noise and electromagnetic devices, implanted surveillance and voice-to-skull devices, and stolen organs. Dr. Shumate said it is common for plaintiffs to have paranoid beliefs about GPS, telecommunications, radio frequencies, artificial intelligence, and hacking of social media and financial accounts.
The plaintiffs try frantically to avoid, prevent, or fight against their reported harassment. These efforts include drawing attention to the perceived harm by taking legal action, such as filing police reports and seeking criminal charges or filing lawsuits against the perceived government entities.
Latest Research
Few studies examine gang stalking claims in the courts. The researchers reviewed American federal cases published between 2018 and 2023 that included the term gang stalking. They completed qualitative analyses of judges’ opinions in 80 cases, looking for specific words, themes, and concepts.
In 90 per cent of the cases, plaintiffs represented themselves, possibly an indication that attorneys declined to represent them in their case. Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) asked that legal fees be waived. Many plaintiffs also incorrectly referenced inappropriate laws (e.g., treaties between the United States and other countries or the American codes for war crimes). Most claimed their civil or constitutional rights were violated (65 per cent) or claimed damages (63 per cent). About 82 per cent referenced multi-entity conspiracies, while about 62 per cent referenced technology or devices.
The gang stalkers included respondents at every level of government, court, and police; American government agencies in the military, intelligence, and healthcare sectors; the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the Federal Communications Commission. Banks, phone companies, healthcare providers, secret societies (e.g., Illuminati, Freemasons), and random businesses have also been accused of gang stalking.
Court Characterizations
Courts tend to view these claims unfavourably and rule against these plaintiffs, often referring to fantastical statements unsupported by evidence.
While courts rarely mention psychiatric diagnoses in the publicly available opinions, some plaintiffs reported emotional distress, post-traumatic stress disorder, having a mental breakdown from ongoing gang stalking, or suicidal thoughts.
Most cases (87.5 per cent) had portions dismissed on procedural grounds, because of meritless claims, or both. In some cases, the court allowed the plaintiff to amend their complaints. Dr. Shumate said courts seemed hesitant to dismiss cases entirely but provided plaintiffs with an opportunity to provide evidence that directly linked the respondents to the relevant issues.
At the end of the presentation, Dr. Motley reviewed two anonymized cases as examples that highlight several prominent themes identified in their research project, including allegations of multi-entity conspiracies involving the use of technology to covertly cause physical symptoms in “targeted individuals,” causing them great distress.
Written by Virginia St-Denis and approved by Drs. Emma Hamilton, Matthew W. Motley, and Collin Shumate.
