A woman known as Cornell’s Jane Doe is “terrified” for her safety amid increasing threats of violence and a recent swatting incident, which saw officers point their weapons at her loved ones.
“I don’t think she’s in a good spot now. She’s scared,” her attorney, Thomas Giuffra, told CNN, specifically noting the public fallout she has faced since filing her lawsuit against Cornell University and others, claiming she was raped at a frat house in 2024. It has resulted in a wave of anger online and doxxing threats, in addition to threats against her life, he said.
On Wednesday, Doe spent the day “taping paper over windows in the house she’s lived at her whole life,” Giuffra said, “so people can’t see” inside “to take a shot at her.” Her decision to do so came a day after police showed up at the residence in response to a phony tip suggesting “someone was killing people in the house.”
The report came in on Tuesday around 7 p.m., about a man shooting and killing his mother and then turning the gun on his sister. Despite being entirely false, the officer who received the report was under the impression an active shooter situation was underway and acted accordingly.
When he arrived at Doe’s home, he spotted a car backing out of the driveway. Inside were Doe’s brother and boyfriend, both of who were briefly apprehended, per a police report obtained by CNN.
Her father quickly appeared in the doorway, and called out: “I’m the dad. What’s going on?”
He went on to explain his daughter’s situation, telling the officer she is the Jane Doe in the Cornell gang rape case, and that she was “being threatened by numerous unknown people.”
Authorities later determined the tip to be false, and have described it as swatting incident.
Swatting is a form of cyber harassment that typically involves a caller alerting law enforcement to an active shooter situation or some other sort of immediate danger that does not actually exist. The goal is to illicit a large police response which often includes the arrival of a SWAT team. Though often described as a prank call, the results can be devastating, and even deadly.
“Luckily the brother was in his car, (he) put his hands up,” Giuffra told CNN.
“(Doe’s) boyfriend got thrown on the ground,” and her father also had “guns put in his face,” the lawyer continued. “If you had a trigger-happy cop, or somebody had done the wrong thing, somebody could have ended up dead.”
The incident remains under investigation.