Alleged Snapchat Drug Dealer Asks For His Address To Be Removed

TEWKSBURY, MA -- The Andover man arrested by Tewksbury Police for allegedly using the social network Snapchat to sell drugs that sickened two Tewksbury teenagers says that he "really doesn't need my address out on the internet" and accused Patch and the Tewksbury Police Department of "doxxing" him. Police arrested Or-Shahar, 20, of 3 York Street in Andover, on Friday, after recovering 29 grams of MDMA, or ecstasy, and 67 hits of LSD. Police believe Or-Shahar sold LSD to two 16-year-olds who were hospitalized after taking the drug.

"Hey, this is Akiva, from the article you just wrote about the 'snapchat dealer'," Or-Shahar said in an email to Patch on Monday. "Can you please remove my address from the article? I really do not need my address out on the internet, as that is pretty much doxxing me."

"Doxxing" is Internet slang for publishing personal and identifying information about a person on the Internet without their consent, usually with malicious intent. The term entered mainstream culture in the weeks following a white supremacist march on Charlottesville, VA last summer, when white nationalists were doxxed by counter-protesters. Police officers who have been accused of wrongfully shooting unarmed people have also been doxxed in recent years.

Police departments and news outlets have traditionally published the name, age and address of a person who has been arrested to avoid misidentification. People with similar names may be wrongly identified by readers as a person of accused of a crime. It's also important to note that an arrest does not equal guilt; a conviction or guilty plea is needed for that.

Not long after Or-Shahar emailed Patch, another person using an anonymous email address also sent a message requesting that his name and address be removed from the article. "I understand it's not illegal, but it seems unnecessary to publish and rather invasive to put out there. Akiva is already having a hard time with this issue, and it really doesn't add anything to the article to put in. Please could you remove his address from your article?" the person who identified themselves as Casul Nerd wrote.

Patch routinely gets requests from people who want their name removed from articles about arrests, especially if the person was found not guilty or the charges were dropped. If you've been arrested and want to get your name removed from a Patch police report, the process is a simple one. After the sentence has been served or if you've been found not guilty, simply email the link to the article and a scan or a jpg of your court paperwork showing the conclusion of the case to arrestreports@patch.com.

Court documents should show resolution of the case, along with dates and sentencing information. After that, we will edit or update the police log. It usually takes a couple of weeks for search engines caches to clear. Also, please note that the information remains in the Patch archives and is accessible to editors if there are future problems. Patch is not responsible for other news outlets or websites that aggregate our content. You would need to contact those webmasters directly and request removal.

Please refrain from requesting that a name or information be removed before the court process and sentencing has concluded as we will not do that. We treat everyone equally.

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Photo by Tewksbury Police Department.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).