Nick Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, was targeted after he was filmed standing in front of a Native American activist, while the activist, Nathan Phillips, chanted and drummed in Sandmann's face.
On camera, Sandmann stood still, smiled, and motioned to his friends not to do anything, while a member of Phillips' entourage shouted at them to "go back to Europe" since "white people stole our land." After a short clip of the interaction went viral, he was called a racist, "punchable," and other names.
In the early hours of reporting on the incident, several students were misidentified as Sandmann. When he was later identified, he and other Covington students faced death threats.
Ted Sandmann, Nick Sandmann's father, appeared on March 6 before the state Senate's State and Local Government Committee to speak out in support of the proposed anti-doxxing bill.
He took issue with one comment in particular, made by Reza Aslan, a liberal CNN commentator, who posted a picture of Sandmann with the caption: "Have you ever seen a more punchable face?"
To this day, the missive is still up on Twitter, and Aslan is among those who have refused to apologize for their slander. CNN has not addressed the missive.
While the comment was offensive, others "threatened much more violence," Ted Sandmann noted. Among those was a Hollywood producer sharing a video showing youth wearing "Make America Great Again" hats going into a woodchipper.
"It shows how far out of control social media has become," Sandmann said.
The crime would be a misdemeanor, but could be elevated to a felony if physical harm or monetary loss resulted.
Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a Democrat who voted no, said the bill is too broad. "I believe doxing is bad," he said. "But when we start creating new crimes and new fines, this is something we need to get right."
The bill passed the committee 8-3 and heads to the full state senate.
Lawyer Says Editor's Note Not Enough
The lawyer representing Sandmann in a lawsuit against the Amazon-owned, openly liberal Washington Post for its alleged smears against his client said the editor's note the outlet posted about its reporting on the incident wasn't enough.The Post issued the note that it deleted a tweet wrongly calling Phillips a Vietnam veteran and saying its initial story about the incident was not correct.
"Subsequent reporting, a student’s statement, and additional video allow for a more complete assessment of what occurred, either contradicting or failing to confirm accounts provided in that story," the Post said. The publication admitted no wrongdoing even though the full video footage was available at the time of the first report.
"The Post made no effort to retract and correct the lies it published," he added. "The Post did not have the character to apologize to Nicholas and seek his forgiveness."