Police Repeatedly Forced to Listen to N.W.A.’s ‘Fuck Tha Police’ After Someone Hacked Their Radio Frequency
An official law enforcement radio station in a New Zealand city was hijacked over the weekend and made to broadcast multiple versions of a notoriously anti-police rap song.
The song, "Fuck Tha Police" by 1990s Los Angeles group N.W.A., was illegally played several times through the official Dunedin police frequency on Monday and over the weekend, according to local newspapers.
Police told the Otago Daily Times that multiple versions of the song had been broadcast through the channel, including the 1998 Rage Against The Machine cover, which was played by hackers last Friday.
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The region's acting commander Inspector Kelvin Lloyd told local media that there were no police radios missing so police believed that the broadcasts were being made by an outside party who had not yet been found.
Lloyd said that the explicit music did not offend him or his colleagues but said that whoever was hacking the station was more than just a nuisance.
He did condemned the hacker for putting lives at risk by hijacking a radio station used by police to communicate and coordinate law enforcement.
"Any interference with a police radio constitutes a risk to public safety, and anyone caught doing this can face a penalty of criminal nuisance and up to one year imprisonment," Lloyd said.
Lloyd explained that the broadcast on Friday put people in danger as it interfered with a callout to a man pointing a gun at a motorist.
"There's no question that if it carries on and if they do what they're doing it will delay a response," he said.
Similar hacking reports emerged last August in the country, after a member of the public broadcast pig grunts and verbal abuse through a lower North Island police radio frequency. The word pig is commonly used to insult law enforcement officials.
N.W.A. was an American hip hop group from California known for revolutionizing the gangster rap subgenre.
"Fuck Tha Police" debuted on the group’s Straight Outta Compton album and rose to legendary status through lyrics that detail police brutality and racial profiling.
The Dunedin Police did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
Listen to the uncensored, explicit version of the song below: