Man charged with stalking ex after hundreds of phone calls

A man accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend bombarded her with hundreds of calls before confronting her in Berkeley despite a restraining order, police say.

Earlier this month, police say Derrick Sparks, 44, followed his ex-girlfriend in a vehicle for several blocks before getting into a tense street confrontation with a man who was with her.

During the Aug. 7 confrontation on Russell Street in South Berkeley, the woman's mother pepper-sprayed Sparks after he spit in his ex-girlfriend's face, police wrote in charging papers.

Berkeley police who responded to a 911 call about the incident ultimately determined that Sparks had called the woman 18 times that day, beginning at about 3 a.m., they wrote.

Sparks, who already had a warrant in a Berkeley domestic violence and sexual assault case from February, was gone when officers arrived, BPD wrote.

According to charging papers, Sparks threatened to kill the woman and her children when she tried to end the relationship.

And he was repeatedly violent with her, police wrote, at one point knocking her unconscious.

From July 18 through Aug. 7, police say Sparks made 350 calls and sent dozens of text messages and emails to the woman and her associates "in attempts to harass her."

Some of the messages included sexually explicit videos of his ex, police wrote.

"You're about to have me resort to extreme measures like getting your kids took, losing your job," he wrote, according to charging papers.

On July 31, Berkeley police helped the woman get a domestic violence restraining order to try to keep Sparks away from her, court papers show.

But it didn't stop Sparks from coming to Berkeley and getting a hotel room near her home in early August, police wrote.

After the Aug. 7 street confrontation, police put a felony stop on Sparks' car.

Flock cameras later helped Emeryville police spot the vehicle outside a hotel in their city, BPD said.

Derrick Sparks. BPD

San Francisco police arrested Sparks on Aug. 8, with the help of a department drone, after getting their own Flock alert, police said.

When officers took him into custody, Sparks "denied all allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence," BPD wrote. "He did not provide a statement regarding the … unwanted contact."

After his arrest, the Alameda County district attorney's office charged Sparks with felony stalking and two misdemeanor counts: annoying phone calls and battery, according to court papers.

Sparks, who lives in Maryland, is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, according to booking records.

He is set for a pretrial hearing Monday at the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland, court records show.