San Jose Unified School District alerted families that an unauthorized adult woman had been videotaping community members across school campuses and even inside a high school girls' locker room before posting the recordings to social media, according to NBC Bay Area. The San Jose Police Department confirmed it is now conducting active investigations into both the locker room intrusion and a separate harassment complaint involving the same woman, identified as 47-year-old Lindsay Hansen.
The case burst into public view after a viral encounter in San Jose's Almaden neighborhood, where a local father filmed Hansen confronting him on a Sunday, as reported by SFist. In the video, the father — who described himself as brown, with a daughter he called half-white — said Hansen accused him of sex trafficking his own child, basing the accusation on the fact that the two had different skin tones. Hansen also questioned whether he was legally in the country and claimed she worked with federal authorities, according to reporting from the New York Post. The father later reported the incident to the San Jose Police Department, and police confirmed they are investigating the harassment complaint.
A Honda vehicle visible in the viral video is registered to Hansen, per the Post's reporting, and a TikTok user who posted footage of the encounter said the woman had harassed him and his daughter multiple times in their San Jose neighborhood. Hansen has separately been accused of entering a girls' locker room at a San Jose Unified school and of accusing PE teachers of inappropriate behavior. San Jose police said social media photos showed an adult female unassociated with the school accessing a high school locker room, and the district said it is working closely with police to determine how the entry occurred.
A History of Documented Mental Health Crisis
Court filings reviewed by the Post paint a starkly different picture from the online “racist Karen” framing that first attached to Hansen. Her family reported her missing in 2022, and a relative told police at the time that she was experiencing severe mental health issues while living with her elderly father, according to KTVU.
According to a court filing cited by the Post, Dr. Shellie Kahane wrote that Hansen showed symptoms of bipolar disorder and appeared to be experiencing a manic episode with psychotic features, including delusions, auditory hallucinations, and paranoia. Kahane also said Hansen did not believe anything was wrong with her or that she needed medication, per the filing. Hansen was involuntarily committed to the Telecare Heritage psychiatric health facility, and Kahane filed a declaration and petition in May 2022 in the Bay Area concerning Hansen's capacity to refuse medication. She was later prescribed Invega, a medication used to treat schizophrenia.
Hansen's own social media posts, as documented by the Post, reflect the same delusional themes described in the court filings. She posted that the birth of her child in 2020 marked the beginning of the seven-year tribulation, or end times, and claimed she was something of a worldwide celebrity. Other posts suggested Pope Leo XIV is satan, referenced the Epstein files, and included antisemitic content. Hansen also posted that she believed it was her job to drive around and identify pedophiles, that authorities had facial recognition technology, and that people commenting on her page would be investigated for their own crimes by her team. She has said she would “ferret out the wicked and free the city of god from their grave,” and claimed that people defending child rapists and traffickers were probably guilty themselves.
Legal Exposure Under State Trespass and Campus-Access Laws
Unauthorized entry into a K-12 campus by a non-student adult can raise legal issues under California school-access and registration rules. Separately, Penal Code § 602 contains multiple trespass provisions. Subsection 602(k) concerns entering land with intent to interfere with a lawful business or occupation, while subsection 602(m) concerns entering or occupying property without consent, per FindLaw.
The incident echoes an earlier case in the same district. In late October 2024, the San Jose Police Department announced the arrest of a 41-year-old man who unlawfully entered a San Jose Unified middle school girls' locker room and recorded juvenile students on a mobile device, a case Hoodline covered in its prior locker room incident report. That suspect was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail following an investigation by SJPD's Sexual Assault Investigations Unit, according to the department's own announcement.
What Happens Under an Involuntary Psychiatric Hold
California's mental health code lays out a narrow path for extended involuntary treatment. Under Welfare and Institutions Code § 5250, an involuntary hold can be extended up to 14 days beyond the initial 72-hour evaluation only if hospital staff certify the patient remains a danger to self, a danger to others, or gravely disabled due to a mental health disorder, according to FindLaw. Patients held under such a 14-day certification are entitled to an automatic Certification Review Hearing within four days, supported by a Patients' Rights Advocate, per NAMI Santa Clara County.
Santa Clara County also has structured programs available for people experiencing untreated psychotic disorders or severe psychiatric decompensation, including Assisted Outpatient Treatment and the state's CARE Court framework, according to the same NAMI Santa Clara County resource. Whether any such intervention applies to Hansen's case remains unaddressed in available reporting.
Hansen, for her part, has pushed back on the “Karen” label attached to her online. She has said there are many crazy Karens and questioned why news reporters would approach her, according to the Post's account. She came into the public spotlight through the video accusing the Almaden father of sex trafficking his own child, and San Jose Unified has said it filed a police report and alerted the community about her behavior. No charges have been announced as the police investigations continue.
