Victim's Voice helps fight online assaults that follow the physical ones
University of Washington student Graham Harper
A Seattle mother helped start the group to fend off Internet reprisals against her son after the acquittal of the man who stabbed him
If our legal system does not catch up to technology, witnesses and victims will be unwilling to testify against their attackers”
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES, May 22, 2017 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What happened to University of Washington student Graham Harper should serve as a caution to other victims of violent crime who find themselves in the news.— Deborah Harper, Victim's Voice co-founder
Harper was nearly killed when he intervened in an altercation between two female students and a male student, who punched one of the women in her eye.
Harper was repeatedly stabbed by the male student, who carried a concealed knife, and was stunned when the man was acquitted. Instead of moving on with his life, the stabber took to Reddit to find sympathy for his legal trouble. This resulted in an 18-month-long campaign of smears and harassment against Harper including doxing attacks trying to get him kicked out of school and the National Guard, threatening phone calls, and posts from bloggers across the U.S. and in Canada falsely accusing Harper of intending to kill the man who had wielded the knife.
This report in the May 16 edition of Seattle Weekly presents a textbook case of what, in today’s culture of social media and internet anonymity, can happen to anyone who finds himself the victim of a crime that makes international headlines.
To help future victims navigate through this kind of secondary assault, Harper and his family have launched Victim's Voice, a 501-3c (pending) non-profit focused on helping victims subjected to online harassment and doxing.
“If our legal system does not catch up to technology, witnesses and victims will be unwilling to testify against their attackers,” said Harper’s mother, Deborah. “Gone are the days when intimidation meant a brick through a window or a bullet left in a mailbox. Today, any criminal with access to a computer can ruin lives and weaken our legal system. Is this what we want?”
Anne Bremner
Attorney
(206) 486-1200
email us here
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