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What is the legal definition of stalking?
Stalking is when the abuser performs certain acts on two or more occasions to intimidate you or your family members.1 The multiple acts are known as a “course of conduct.” It could include behaviors such as:
- surveilling you;
- sending you unwanted written or verbal communications;
- threatening you verbally, in writing, or in an unspoken (implied) way;
- committing acts of vandalism against you;
- repetitive acts of harassment through words, gestures, or actions made with the intention of intimidating, threatening, or following you or your family members.2 For these purposes, a “family member” is defined as:
- your spouse, child, parent, grandparent, grandchild, sibling, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, or cousin;
- any other person related to you by blood or marriage who is part of your nuclear family;
- a significant other with whom you live or used to live;
- someone who you are/were dating; or
- a person with whom you live or used to live in the same house for at least six months before the stalking started.3
1 33 L.P.R.A. § 4013(c)
2 33 L.P.R.A. § 4013(a)
3 33 L.P.R.A. § 4013(d)
