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Doxxing

Denver police commander doxxing: first conviction under Colorado's anti-doxxing law (2026)

FILE 190Denver, Colorado2025-09-03
CLOSED

A Denver activist was convicted under Colorado's anti-doxxing statute after reading a police commander's home address aloud on a livestream and suggesting followers gather at his home. It is the first known conviction under the law, and the defense plans a First Amendment appeal.

What happened

On September 3, 2025, Regan Benson livestreamed from outside the Denver Police Department's District 3 station. Benson, a longtime critic of the department, asked her YouTube viewers to find the home address of Commander Joel Bell. Viewers found it and sent it to her. She read the street address aloud on the stream and suggested her followers hold a "pig roast" at his home. Benson later described that comment as hyperbole.

Denver prosecutors charged Benson under Colorado's anti-doxxing statute (section 18-9-313 of the Colorado Revised Statutes). The law makes it a crime to post a protected person's home address or other personal details online when the disclosure threatens their safety. Police officers are among the people it covers.

A Denver County Court jury convicted Benson in 2026 after a two-day trial. It was the first known conviction under the statute. On May 8, 2026, the court sentenced her to 60 days in jail, two years of probation, a $1,000 fine, and a victim empathy class. Her defense said it will appeal on First Amendment grounds.

How the address was found

Benson did not hack a database. Her viewers found Commander Bell's home address through public channels: people-search broker sites, county property records, and similar open sources. Finding it took a name and a willingness to look. That is the same path anyone can use to learn where an officer, judge, or other public worker lives.

The case is likely to become a test of how far anti-doxxing laws can reach. In August 2025, a federal court struck down West Virginia's version of Daniel's Law, a statute that let judges and police officers sue data brokers for publishing their home address and phone number. The court ruled it violated the First Amendment. New Jersey's Daniel's Law works the same way: it lets covered officials demand that data brokers remove their home address and sue if the broker refuses. These laws are being challenged in court, and none of them guarantees a listing stays down.

What this means for your own exposure

Colorado's statute is reactive. It can punish someone after they share an officer's address, but it does not remove the address from the sites that publish it. In this case, Commander Bell's home address was reachable on broker pages before the livestream, and the sentencing does not take it down. His home address is also his family's address.

Removing that information ahead of time is a separate step from the legal protections, and it is the one that limits what someone can find before any threat is made. Frontline Privacy finds where a home address is listed on data broker and people-search sites, files removal requests, and keeps checking for records that come back.

If you have been doxxed or want to understand the threat, see /doxxing and /doxxing/recovery.

What reduces this risk

The home address in this case was reachable through people-search sites and public records, the same channels that put an officer's, judge's, or other public worker's address one search away. Colorado's statute creates liability after the fact; it does not remove the underlying data. Removing a home address from data broker sites, and refiling when it reappears, is the step that limits what someone can find in the first place.

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