In early 2026, a Grand Rapids man was charged after a Facebook post misidentified an innocent man as the officer in a fatal police shooting and published his home address and family details. The man he named had no connection to the police department.
What happened
On February 18, 2026, a Grand Rapids police officer shot and killed Da'Quain Johnson, 32. In the days after, Michael Buxton, 44, posted on Facebook naming a man from Michigan's Upper Peninsula as the officer who fired. The man had no connection to the shooting or to the Grand Rapids Police Department.
According to court documents reported by WOOD-TV, the post listed the man's home address, his wife's and other family members' names, and the address of a school his children had attended. It called him a "dirty racist police officer." A "wanted poster" that read "by any means necessary" circulated alongside it.
The man received threats and moved his family out of their home.
Buxton was charged in late February with unlawful posting of a message and using a computer to commit a crime. WOOD-TV later reported that prosecutors dropped the charges after Buxton and the man he named completed a restorative justice program at the Dispute Resolution Center of West Michigan.
The law that applied
Michigan charged Buxton under MCL 750.411s, its unlawful-posting statute. It makes it a crime to post someone's information online without consent when the poster knows it could lead to repeated unwanted contact and intends to make the person feel threatened or harassed. That law punishes the poster after the fact. It does not take the information down.
Michigan's public-records law also has a personal-privacy exemption, MCL 15.243, which lets agencies withhold personal information from public-records requests. It covers what the government holds. It does not reach data brokers or people-search sites, and it does nothing about information already posted. Unlike New Jersey's Daniel's Law, Michigan has no statute that lets an officer order data brokers to take down a home address.
What this means for your exposure
The details that fueled this harassment were ordinary: a home address, a spouse's name, a school. None of it required special access. Home addresses, relatives' names, and property records are collected and resold across data-broker and people-search sites, and anyone can pull them.
Reporting on this case did not say where the poster got the man's address, so the specific source is unknown. The general point still stands. The fewer places your home address is published, the fewer paths a stranger has to your door and the people who live there.
Removing your address from broker and people-search sites is one concrete step that cuts down that exposure.
What reduces this risk
The information that fueled this harassment was ordinary personal data: a home address, a spouse's name, a school. Home addresses, relatives' names, and property records are collected and resold across data-broker and people-search sites, and anyone can pull them. Reporting did not say where the poster got the address, so treat the source as unknown, but the general point holds: the fewer places your home address is published, the fewer paths a stranger has to it. Frontline Privacy files removal requests on the broker listings it finds and keeps checking for records that come back.
Public sources
- Court docs: Wrong man doxed after GRPD shooting — WOOD-TV, 2026-02-26
- Charges dropped in doxxing case after GRPD shooting — WOOD-TV, 2026-05-19