Did Doxxing of an Oklahoma Councilwoman Lead to a Neighbor Being Raped?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

A city council member in Norman, Oklahoma, proposed a police budget cut. Then officers for that department posted her address online. Days later, a woman who lived in the other half of her duplex was raped by an assailant who allegedly made a political threat.

The attack was a case of retaliation and mistaken identity, the council member alleges.

Alexandra Scott, a Norman council member who won the Democratic nomination for her state Senate seat last month, is an outspoken critic of her city’s police force. When racial justice protests swept the nation in June, Scott proposed slashing the Norman Police budget by $4.5 million. During a city council meeting about defunding, she also discussed a stalking incident she experienced, which she said police handled improperly. Now a pair of Norman Police officers are under investigation for allegedly posting Scott’s personal information online, which Scott says may have led to the sexual assault of her neighbor.

Defunding the police is a fraught issue across the country, but especially in Norman, where police have made their disagreements with elected officials well known. Amid calls to slash the city’s police budget by millions, council members voted to reallocate $865,000 from the department. The move didn’t cut the police’s overall budget (it mostly vetoes the department’s requested raise, but keeps the department’s coffers at slightly above last year’s budget) but it was enough for the city’s police union to file a lawsuit against city council this month.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/did-doxxing-oklahoma-councilwoman-lead-083644774.html

[MagickMuffin]

1. Disgusting, I'm so sorry this happened

to the ladies involved. I hope the victim got a rape kit for DNA identifying the perpetrator!

[Igel]

2. And yet if there was doxxing, this kind of thing happens.

It's aiding and abetting vigilantism.

It's like antibodies in a mammal--search and destroy mentality for the dangerously self-righteous self-appointed inquisition. At best, it treats equal citizens as enemies of the people, but when it goes awry it's like an autoimmune disease and inquisitors never stop to reflect. And at the same time the doxxing itself just lets those who aren't self-righteous but just criminals have access to information they wouldn't otherwise have.

Years ago I heard of a case in which some anti-abortion folk were "doxxing" the women who were visiting a clinic. Imposing extra-judicial punishment for sins of personal differences in morality ... Brownshirt material, that. Or sort of a socialist youth brigade that's parallel but mirror image to the Nazi youth.

[Mariana]

3. "have access to information they wouldn't otherwise have..."

Names and addresses are public records. Everyone has access to them.

Edit: It's not like she was posting anonymously on the internet. She's and elected official and as such, a public figure. She can have no reasonable expectation that her public records won't become widely known.