Salt Lake City Council District 7 candidate Amy Fowler filed a police complaint Thursday after receiving threatening and sexually explicit messages on social media.
Fowler said she received three expletive-laden messages between 10 p.m. Wednesday and 3:30 a.m. Thursday. Two contained explicit images and a third included a picture of someone brandishing a handgun.
She said she did not personally know the sender but that it appears to be a local man. Fowler, who is a public defender, said the person might have had contact with the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association.
She called the incident “incredibly overwhelming and frightening.”
“I don’t know the motivation,” Fowler said Thursday. “I was going to just keep this under the rug and not say anything. But then the more I thought about it the more I said we need to be talking about this. This is a violent, intimidating, harassing action and no one deserves to be put through this.”
Police had no immediate comment on the incident.
Fowler faces Abe Smith in the District 7 race Tuesday to replace outgoing Councilwoman Lisa Adams.