It was 9:47 p.m. on a Friday night, and Rachel Montana was headed to Old Town to bartend the closing shift at the Dixie Tavern.
She ordered a Lyft and hopped in the nondescript sedan that showed up at her home to deliver the ride.
As she sat in the back seat, she opened her phone to create a promotional post on her public Facebook page. It was May 5 and she had to let her nearly 5,000 followers know they should come down to Dixie for “Cinco De Drinko,” where she’d be serving up tequila that holiday weekend.
Montana, a petite 26-year-old with ever-changing hair color and a spattering of tattoos, said the Dixie requires that its bartenders promote themselves on social media before each of their shifts.
She goes by “Rachel Montana” on her profile and when she’s working. It’s not her real name, and for her safety, it’s the only name we’re using in this story.
As she stared down at her phone, the Lyft driver asked her, “What are you watching?”
Montana immediately felt uneasy. She takes Lyft rides almost daily, and said she’s never had a driver make her feel that way before.
It became clear he wanted to talk. As a bartender, she was used to making polite conversation, she said, so she chatted with him until she arrived at work at 9:57 p.m.
The ride lasted 10 minutes, and she doesn’t remember details of the conversation.
She got out, thanked him and gave him a five-star rating and a 20 percent tip. “Like I always do with every driver,” she said.
Three weeks later, while she was working a busy Saturday shift, two men approached her bar and ordered Grey Goose and orange juice around 1 a.m. She poured the drinks, ran the credit card and set down the receipt.
“Your name’s Rachel, right? I was your Lyft driver,” said one of the men.
“As soon as he said that, even though I’ve taken so many Lyfts in the last three weeks, I instantly recognized him as the guy who made me feel weird,” she said.
He complimented her appearance and began to ask her personal questions. She said being friendly is a job requirement, so she reluctantly obliged.
He asked if she was still taking a trip to Costa Rica. She must have mentioned this during the Lyft ride but was alarmed he remembered a detail like that three weeks later when he must have given hundreds of rides since then.
His questions continued, and in a matter of a few minutes, he knew where she was attending college, he confirmed that the house where he picked her up three weeks earlier was her home, and he knew how many roommates she had.
“I was trying to be as vague as possible,” she said, “but he kept pushing for more details.”
He ordered another round of drinks and left his card open.
At that point, Montana took his card out front to show the lead security guard his name. She pointed him out and told security that once he left, he was never to be allowed back.
The name on the card was Michael Chi.
Chi is a 37-year-old from San Jose, Calif., whose address was last listed as an Extended Stay America hotel in Beaverton. He does not have a criminal record.
Chi approached Montana for a third round of screwdrivers and then asked her what she was doing after work. At this point she’d had enough. She told him that his line of questioning was making her uncomfortable and that she was done serving him drinks.
He apologized and left without incident.
FURTHER READING: Keeping tabs: Sexual harassment in the service industry
For the next three weeks, Montana kept to her routine: school during the day, bartending weekends and otherwise at home.
On Thursday, June 14, she left town to bartend at What the Festival, a weekend music and art festival 90 miles east of Portland.
That Saturday, Chi went to the Dixie Tavern to ask her co-workers if they knew where she had gone.
Montana wonders if Chi had noticed her break routine.
On Monday, Montana returned home about 7 p.m. from the festival. She walked in the front door of her house, unloaded her camping gear in the kitchen and headed upstairs to tell her roommate about her weekend.
She’d been home only about five minutes when there was a knock on the front door. She walked downstairs and answered it. There stood Chi.
“Rachel …” he said.
“No,” she replied.
“No?”
“No.” She closed the door and locked it.
Did he know she had just arrived home? Had he been watching her house?
She told her roommates that the man who gave her a Lyft ride six weeks ago had just come to their home. Concerned, three of them ran outside looking for him, but he was gone.
Montana got on the phone with Lyft to lodge a complaint and was told that without a police report, there was nothing they could do.
She hung up and immediately phoned the Portland police non-emergency number, and then she jumped in the shower to wash off five days of camping and bartending before the officer arrived to take a report.
Her roommate burst into the bathroom a few minutes later to tell her that Chi had come back to the house and left a note in the mailbox attached to their front door.
When North Precinct Officer Tom Snitily showed up, Montana gave him the note and explained what had happened.
Chi’s note said he wanted to open a travel business with Montana and pay for her to travel around the world. He also left his phone number.
Snitily called him, and he answered. The officer told him that if he came back to Montana’s house, he would be arrested. The officer then urged Montana to call 911 and apply for a stalking protective order if he returned.
Over the next 10 days, Montana was fearful to be home alone. She asked friends to keep her company when her roommates were away.
“I was home alone for no more than 20 minutes,” she said.
Montana wrote a detailed Facebook post outlining her experience with Chi, complete with a screenshot of his Lyft profile picture and a warning to others to not get into his car. She posted it on June 20, and it got more than 1,700 likes.
The post also drew comments from women who said they’d had similar experiences with cabdrivers or other ride-hailing services.
Street Roots asked Portland Police Bureau if it tracks how many police reports are filed against drivers working for ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft. Bureau spokesperson Sgt. Pete Simpson said he doesn’t have a way of linking and tracking these reports because, unlike brick-and-mortar businesses, complaints filed against Lyft and Uber drivers are not tied to a specific address.
While not every incident makes headlines, those that do are listed at WhosDrivingYou.org, an initiative of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association. It links to articles about Uber and Lyft driver accidents and crimes around the globe, including sexual assaults, kidnappings and deaths.
This drivers lobby argues that neither Uber nor Lyft uses fingerprints or law enforcement to background-check their drivers and that Uber does not meet with drivers in person before putting them behind the wheel.
One woman who read Montana’s Facebook post told her that she, too, had been stalked by Chi.
Street Roots reached out to this woman, but she declined to go on record with her story, citing her job as a private dancer as reason.
Chi confirmed he knew the stripper when Street Roots contacted him to get his side of the story. He also confirmed Montana’s version of events. He appeared to have no understanding of why his actions caused her alarm.
He said it was “no big deal” and asked if Montana was still in Costa Rica.
Being blind or indifferent to the distress of their victims is a common trait among stalkers.
RELATED: 5 types of stalkers
Montana showed Street Roots messages between her and the other victim. The dancer said she met Chi while she was working and regrettably gave him her phone number, thinking she could just block him. He called and messaged her nonstop. He even tried to follow her home from work one night.
Eventually she had to change her phone number and had him 86’d from the strip club where she works. She never reported him to the police.
She said Chi drove for Uber, as well. However, a spokesperson for Uber said the company does not have “anyone on the app” with his name.
Chi had pursued the dancer, who bears a more-than-striking resemblance to Montana, through the winter and into April. It was in May when he met Montana.
“He basically went straight from her to me,” Montana said.
On June 29, Montana came home from a day on Sauvie Island to find a letter from Chi with no return address. It was five pages of rambling, meandering miss-matched stories from his childhood and past relationships. Here are a few excerpts:
“I had a Jacuzzi in the backyard of the house I grew up in. … All the girls had to change into their swimsuits in my room too, which was also pretty cool. … 12th grade I got drunk once and climbed into this girl’s window. … You have to forgive me for creeping you out at the bar and at your house… You must forgive me and be friends with me. … You are the only SEI I know in Portland. (SEI is a personality type that Montana does not identify as.) … My best friend in high school was an SEI and the first time I met him I pushed him off a bike. … You are like a Leo (his friend’s name) with ovaries. We so need to be best friends. … My last GF … she wouldn’t sleep with me for the first month. … Once, I tried to corner her when she was taking a shower, but it didn’t work. … I was 31 and she was 19. … The girl before her … she got hella mad at me. She gave me the exact same evil eye that you did at the bar when I asked you those personal questions, and OMG she looks just like you, same facial structure, hair color and eye color. … Japan has the highest MILFs per capita in the world. … Every other of the subway’s heated seats is a 50yo MILF that looks 30.”
The same day Montana received the letter, she called the police again, and another officer came out to take a report.
The following day, she went to the Multnomah County Courthouse to get a stalking protective order. She was given a thick packet to fill out.
As she filled out the packet, she realized there was a problem. The courts required Chi’s address.
She said Lyft told her repeatedly they couldn’t give her the address without a subpoena. Officer Snitily worked nights, and Lyft was only open during the day. She was getting nowhere.
On July 5, she walked into the Lyft Hub on North Mississippi Avenue and pleaded her case to a manager on duty, who said he would check with Lyft’s legal department.
Finally, the address was released to the police department the following day. The next morning, Montana went back to the courthouse.
According to a statement from Lyft, “As soon as we were made aware of this incident, we immediately deactivated the driver from the Lyft platform. We also reached out to the passenger to check on their well-being. We have been in touch with the authorities and are prepared to assist further.”
As Montana filled out the stalking order packet, she realized there was another issue: She was required to submit her real name and birthdate – information that would be available to Chi, who only knew her alias.
“I was like, do I want to file this?” she said. “He could stalk me forever now.”
She said she explained this to the man behind the counter at the courthouse, but he told her, “Everybody has the right to face their accuser.”
Feeling out of options, she filed for the stalking order.
“I thought if he comes anywhere near me, I want it on paper that I have a protective order against him – if I need to defend myself or whatever,” she said. “I can build a case against him, so in the future if someone does do a background check on him, he can’t drive for these companies.”
Three days later, Montana returned to the courthouse for her hearing. She brought a friend who manages a security company in case Chi showed up. He didn’t. He said he never got the hearing notice.
Judicial Officer Jon Ghastin read through Montana’s packet, where she described the events leading up to the hearing. How Chi came to her work, and her home right after she walked in the door, and how he had mailed her a letter, all stemming from a 10-minute ride.
Ghastin read the letter, making comments about how Chi appeared to be a “unique” character. Montana felt like he wasn’t taking her fears seriously.
“Obviously this guy has a very special flavor,” Montana recalled him saying.
In a recording of the hearing, Ghastin can be heard rendering his judgment:
“Is this improper conduct or maybe unlawful? Perhaps. There are statutes that forbid telephonic harassment and trespass, but I don’t think we have the circumstances here now, and hopefully ever, for a stalking protective order.”
He said the “missing link” was that Chi had not explicitly threatened Montana with physical harm.
Ghastin told a visibly distressed Montana that if Chi does “something else,” she could always return to court. “I don’t know how else to comfort you,” he said.
Montana said that after everything she’d been through, she was not surprised with the outcome.
She said she wonders what women are supposed to do if their driver decides to stalk them, or any other person who finds out where they live or work during the course of a business transaction. Is there no recourse? Isn’t her address supposed to be privileged information?
“This is how I feel right now – nobody is taking me very seriously, and I feel like I’m in harm’s way and everyone is brushing me off,” she said. “I’m a human being.”
In Oregon, a victim has to have had a relationship with their perpetrator in order to get a restraining order against them.
For victims like Montana who don’t know their antagonizer, they must apply for a stalking protective order.
“When a stranger does this stuff, it gets tricky,” said Martha Strawn Morris, director at The Gateway Center for Domestic Violence Services.
“It’s purposefully harder to get a stalking order because once you get one, it’s permanent, whereas the rest of the protective orders expire after a year. It’s just a higher standard,” she said.
Strawn Morris said that if Montana were working with her center, she’d be looking for follow-up from the police and District Attorney’s Office.
“I would be pounding down their door, saying there’s no other options for court protections for this person; we need the criminal justice system to step up, right here, right now and hold this person accountable,” she said.
But Chi’s case has not been submitted to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution, Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey Lowe said. He said that a query of the Portland Police Bureau database didn’t render any matches for Chi either, but that Montana should continue to report any contact.
That Chi continued his contact through the mail is another barrier to getting protection. Unless he sends a letter containing threats of violence, the First Amendment protects his ramblings under free speech provisions, no matter how alarming.
“In Oregon,” said Melanie Kebler, senior staff attorney at Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, “we have a strong freedom-of-speech provision in our law. So if any of the unwanted contacts are communicative in nature: texts, letters, emails, calls – any kind of speech-based contact has to meet an even higher standard in order to qualify the person for stalking.”
She said the victim also has to be able to articulate to the judge that they are having reasonable apprehension or alarm regarding their personal safety, and if they can’t do that, it makes it difficult for a judge to grant a stalking protective order.
“It’s a difficult standard,” Kebler said. “And yeah – there is a lot of bad behavior you can engage in and not be subject to a stalking protective order.”
In 1999, the Oregon Court of Appeals heard a challenge to the stalking law arguing it violated free-speech laws (Oregon v. Rangel). But the court found that if threatening speech was involved, than it was not in violation of the U.S. or Oregon Constitution, because threatening speech is not protected.
It set the precedent for requiring that communication from the stalker contain a threat to qualify for a stalking order.
“Letters in general, that does get tough,” Kebler said. “Unfortunately, some folks do end up moving.”
The Oregon Department of Justice offers an Address Confidentiality Program for victims who move and want to conceal their whereabouts.
While Chi’s behavior was inappropriate and unsettling, were Montana’s fears justified? Street Roots asked a stalking expert.
Eric Hickey, Dean of the California School of Forensic Studies at Alliant International University, is a criminologist often called on as an expert witness and consultant in stalking and other criminal cases.
Hickey said the reason Chi isn’t threatening Montana is because he’s infatuated with her.
“Most of these creepers tend to go away with time and simply ignoring them,” he said. “Sounds simple, but not if you are the subject of their admirations. Police tend to see it as not that big an issue because no threats are being made, but at the least it is harassment.
“If he is obsessed with her, then rationality goes by the wayside, and he will continue to stalk her, and often they escalate,” Hickey said. “The fact that he has met her, been to her home and work, and is making efforts to contact her against her wishes places him higher on the threat scale. On a scale of 0 to 10, he is around a 6-7 in level of dangerousness. That means he probably won’t do anything to harm her, but because the threat is reasonably high, she needs to protect herself physically and emotionally. The longer this goes on, the more it can undermine her psychologically.”
Twelve days after she was denied the stalking protective order, Montana got another letter from Chi.
Oddly, it was postmarked July 3 but arrived on July 22. Did he retrieve it from her mailbox and put it back at a later date?
In this letter, Chi wrote:
“I saw your FB page for the first time last night. Saw a picture of myself and got really scared. I’m way to scared to click on the photo of me or to continue looking further on your page. I freaking look like Jabba the Hut. Hey, so, are you still mad at me? I can’t imagine you still being mad at me after that 5 page apology/explanation... I saw your instagram post with the Oregon coast rock. Is that a message for me? I do think it is, but there’s no way I can be 100% sure. … Hey so when you go to Costa Rica since Latin America is really dangerous, I should be your bodyguard I’ll just stay a few blocks away, you don’t have to talk to me during the yoga program and I’ll get binoculars and just keep a lookout. …”
Montana is glad to be leaving the country for a while, but terrified that Chi knows where she is going. She said she’s done with bartending and has since made her social media profiles private. She’ll be going on another trip shortly after she returns.
She said it’s unlikely she’ll return to court because at least for now, Chi doesn’t know her real name and she’d like to keep it that way if she’s only going to get denied again.
“I had this crazy stress dream,” she said, “where the dude came for me, no one was around, and he stabbed my arm into the wall, and I was like, OK. I’m going to let him rape me because then I will finally have hard evidence against him.”
Email staff reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @GreenWrites.