State house candidate fears for safety after alleged doxing

A Downriver candidate for the state house says she's been doxxed with her home address and phone number posted online. The number also published on robocalls and campaign mailers. She says it's led to threats and harassment. Jamie Churchy spoke with Fox 2's Dave Kinchin, joins us live from Wyandotte tonight. Dave, I saw those flyers earlier, a little bit alarming when you got those personal numbers on there. Well, yeah, you know, it's very rare to actually see personal information, personal phone numbers. on campaign mailers usually would be a number to a campaign office so former state representative Jamie Churchy is running for her old house seat once again take a look here though she says she's been doxxed before that's nothing new she's been there unfortunately in past election cycles candidates in both parties unfortunately go through this but she did not expect anything like this campaign mailers and robocalls that show her personal cell phone number with messaging urging voters to contact her personally over her past voting record in the legislature as opposed to reaching out to her campaign office. She says now she's getting troubling voicemails like this one. Oh, Jamie, just give it up. Get a day job. You know what you look like? A waitress. All right, honey, just give it up. I'm not voting for you. Lightning. What's her name? Riley. Rosiel. That's where I live. Rosiel. I vote for her. She's cuter than you two. Well, Jamie Churches says even the landline belonging to her parents has been posted in all of this drama. Now, typically, you would see opposing campaigns or interest groups urging voters to either contact the candidate's campaign office or website, as we said, to give them an earful on policy or contact their official government office if that candidate is the incumbent. Churches now says this is becoming a safety issue. I've gotten a series of texts, phone calls, voicemails. I think when it was like my family, I think then it's, I think that's when people need to know. We've had Melissa Hortman be murdered in her home in another state serving in the state legislature and I would never share another woman's personal contact information that was my opponent nor would I do it to any resident in my community. I think we need to protect our personal information from being shared, and mine included. Now, Fox 2 did contact the Michigan Republican Party. That's the organization listed as the sender of some of these messages. We also reached out to a group called the Citizens for Protecting Our Community. They're based out of Okemos. They're an apparent sponsor of some of the other messaging that went out. We did ask why personal contact information was shared. We haven't heard back just yet. We also reached out to Church's Republican opponent for a comment. That candidate has a platform that includes issues like data privacy. We haven't heard back from that candidate as well. So we will continue to press for some sort of response on this and bring it all to you as we get it. We're live in Wyandotte. Dave Kinchin, Fox 2 News. Seems like we keep pushing those boundaries every election cycle. Now, as far as churches, is she going to do anything different in terms of security moving forward as we move toward Election Day? Well, she's really just kind of like a lot of candidates out there, especially for state office, watching their backs. She made the point that, you know, when she was in the legislature before, state reps, state senators don't really get personal protection. Senior state officials obviously do, such as the governor and some offices like that. But general rank and file state officials don't get that kind of protection and even perhaps less so as a candidate.