Authorities in Allegheny County, Pa., are investigating a series of unauthorized transmissions of antisemitic messages and Nazi propaganda broadcast over a public safety radio channel starting on March 2.
Allegheny County Emergency Services was first alerted around 2 p.m. on March 2 to an unidentified radio user transmitting threatening and hateful messages on public safety radio channels, officials said. A second set of messages was broadcast the following morning on the same channel.
Federal and county law enforcement partners, including the Federal Communications Commission, are assisting in the investigation.
According to statements shared with JNS by Kasey Reigner, a county spokeswoman, the public safety system was not hacked. Instead, an unknown individual accessed the county’s analog radio system using an unregistered device to transmit the messages.
Reigner told local outlet TribLIVE that the county has had “unknown subscribers show up on our channels in the past.”
Local reports indicate some messages contained racist and antisemitic language, including threats against Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor, whose late mother was Jewish, and phrases invoking white nationalist ideology. One broadcast reportedly stated, “We will never stop until our children have a future in a white nation,” ending with praise for Adolf Hitler. Another claimed to be from William Luther Pierce, a neo-Nazi who died in 2002.
Public safety officials have temporarily moved usual radio traffic to secure channels to ensure emergency communications remain uninterrupted. Police have not publicly identified any suspects or disclosed the origin of the device used to broadcast the messages, according to county officials.
