Anonymous takes down Albuquerque Police website to protest shooting of homeless man

Last week, the hacktivist group Anonymous threatened to launch a cyberattack against the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) in retaliation for the fatal police shooting of James M. Boyd.

The APD confirmed to KRQE today that "unusual activity" on its website caused the site to crash Saturday night.

The website provides the community with the ability to file police reports, report traffic accidents, track stolen property, access crime statistics, and look up local sex offenders and gang members.

"We can’t confirm the cause of the interruption," said spokesman Peter Ambs in an emailed statement. "The city of Albuquerque information technology team has been working for several days and continues efforts to ensure there have been no disruption to critical services. We will continue to monitor the situation."

Members of the hacktivist group found the preventative measures taken by the department to be laughable. "We aren’t sure if Albuquerque PD understands what a ddos attack is," tweeted Anonymous Operations. "Come on let’s be serious here, they deactivated their FB and Twitter."

A "ddos" or "distributed denial of service" attack would not affect the Facebook page or Twitter account of an organization. It involves thousands of users attempting to access a single website simultaneously, which overloads its servers and shuts it down.

"The only thing Albuquerque city officials have been talking about is planned ddos attacks. Pathetic," tweeted Cypherlulz, suggesting that the hacktivist group has other plans for the APD's website.

["Masks from the film 'V for Vendetta,' popularized by the 'Anonymous' movement on Shutterstock]