A New Jersey mayor says prosecutors are failing to act against a person who has repeatedly harassed him online, raising questions about Daniel’s Law, a state statute that protects certain public officials by shielding their home addresses from disclosure but does not extend those protections to elected officials such as mayors.
Belleville Mayor Michael Melham said someone posted a photograph of his house and published his home address, and then digitally altered his property to resemble an ICE detention facility. The mayor says he is no stranger to physical and verbal attacks, having previously reported them to the police or worked with private security.
“Some may dismiss this as absurd,” Melham, who acknowledged his address is publicly viewable, online, said. “But within the past week, an individual was arrested for attempting to set fire to a building they believed ICE was about to occupy. That is not hypothetical. That is reality. This is the environment we are operating in.”…