Hacked electronic road sign reads 'Hail Hitler' in Arizona

Victor Ren | The Arizona Republic

An electronic road sign displayed an anti-Semitic message early Friday morning on a highway on the outskirts of Phoenix.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office received a call at 2:25 a.m. about an electronic road sign along Hunt Highway that read "Hail Hitler," an incorrectly spelled reference to the Nazi salute.

The road sign was hacked by an unknown person and the words on the sign were changed, said Navideh Forghani, public information officer for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.

Officers tried to turn off the sign, but it required a password and officers could not immediately reach the private company that owned the sign.

Forghani said police reached out to Pinal County's Public Works department for help and they covered the sign to hide the message from others.

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Police will not investigate this incident as a hate crime because there was no victim targeted, Forghani said. The private company that owned the sign would need to file a complaint, she added.

Florence, Arizona, resident Tiffany King and her family were driving home from Peoria at around 2:30 a.m. when she saw the sign.

King said the sign was on Hunt Highway and she turned back to get a photo of it. She said officers told her they were unable to change the message on the electronic sign. Hours later, the anti-Semitic message was removed.