The shadowy online hacker group called Anonymous has posted online the home address and phone number of one of the University of California, Davis police officers suspended for using pepper spray on Occupy protesters.
In a video posting on its own website and on YouTube on Tuesday, the group urges its supporters to “Flood his home with pizza deliveries and junk mail. … Flood his skype. … Flood his phones, email and mailbox to voice your anger.”
Anonymous also threatened to publish personal information about any other police officer who engages in “brutalization” of protesters, “raids on our encampments,” or other “illegal actions.”
“It is time you took a dose of your own medicine and stopped hiding behind your badge,” the computer-generated voice on the video says.
The Anonymous video posting features the footage of two police officers calmly pepper-spraying students who were blocking a pathway during an “Occupy” protest on campus on Friday. Nine students were treated at the scene by medical personnel, and two were hospitalized.
The pictures of the incident went viral over the weekend and UC Davis authorities apologized Monday and announced that its police chief and two officers had been placed on administrative leave while the incident was investigated, but did not name them.
A UC Davis spokesman told The Washington Times that the posting of anyone’s personal data online was “deplorable.”
“Obviously, that’s completely inappropriate,” university spokesman Andy Fell said.
Mr. Fell declined to confirm the identity of either officer involved, so The Times is not naming the man whose personal details were revealed in the Anonymous video.
Representatives of the Federated University Police Officers Association, the union that represents campus cops in the 10-campus University of California system, and a lawyer representing one of the officers involved did not immediately return phone messages.
YouTube removed an initial posting of the video within hours for violating its hate-speech policy, but a subsequent version, still containing all the officer’s personal details, remained online Tuesday evening.
It is not the first time that Anonymous has targeted law enforcement officers by publishing their personal information online — a practice hackers call “doxing.”
In September, New York City police inspector Anthony Bologna, who had also been videoed pepper-spraying protesters, had his home address and phone number posted by Anonymous.
In June, the group published personal information of a number of Arizona peace officers, saying it was in protest of the state’s new law against illegal immigrants.
Just last week, supporters of Anonymous published 38,000 personal emails, as well as voicemail and text messages, from the account of retired California State Department of Justice investigator Alfredo “Fred” Baclagan. The hackers said in a Twitter message to the tech news site Ars Technica that Mr. Baclagan’s targeting “also has to do w/ FBI’s targeting of anons.”
• Shaun Waterman can be reached at 123@example.com.
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