Student Demands Safety Reforms After Stalker Incident and Police Release

A UC Berkeley student is demanding urgent security reforms after a frightening encounter where a man chased her to her apartment and scaled a locked gate to follow her inside. The student, Eden Winograd, a junior at the university, has expressed concern over her safety and the legal limitations that led to the man's release.

The incident occurred on September 15 in Berkeley, California, as Winograd was walking her dog near her off-campus apartment. According to Winograd, a man approached her and made strange gestures before sprinting towards her. She fled back to her apartment complex, entering through a security gate and locking it behind her. Surveillance footage captured the man climbing over the gate and entering the complex shortly after.

Winograd managed to reach her apartment safely but was concerned the man might have seen which unit she entered. She contacted Berkeley police, but officers were unable to locate the man at that time, citing other high-priority calls.

The following evening, Winograd encountered the same man near her apartment and again called the police. Officers located and identified him as 50-year-old Kenneth Kenji Stine, who was described as unhoused. Police detained Stine to discuss the previous night's incident. However, Winograd reported that officers soon released him, stating they could not make an arrest for trespassing because they had not witnessed the alleged offense themselves.

Berkeley police explained that the alleged trespassing was a misdemeanor, and officers cannot typically make a warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor they did not personally witness. Because the incident occurred the previous night, officers forwarded the case to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for review. This decision left Winograd questioning the effectiveness of current laws and police actions.

Records indicate Stine has a history of legal issues, including a previous arrest on the UC Berkeley campus in June for an alleged restraining order violation. He also faced a felony arson charge in San Mateo County following an incident at a coffee shop days after the encounter with Winograd. His past convictions include felony arson, vandalism, and battery.

Stine also has an online presence where he has spoken about hearing voices and attributed it to a purported secret DARPA program. Despite his history, the immediate charges related to the September 15 incident were limited by legal restrictions on misdemeanor offenses not witnessed by officers.

Several days after the initial encounter with Winograd, Stine was arrested on an unrelated felony warrant for an alleged violation of post-release community supervision in Contra Costa County. Berkeley officers located him on this warrant and he was booked into Santa Rita Jail, where he is currently held without bail. He is not incarcerated on new charges related to Winograd's incident, but the Alameda County District Attorney's Office is still considering whether to file charges stemming from the apartment incident.

Winograd has spoken out about her experience, advocating for stricter laws and greater protections for residents. She expressed that "You guys don’t do anything until it’s too late," and "This happens too often to too many people."