Anonymous: We hacked Oakland websites

The city of Oakland and the Oakland Police Department websites have been out intermittently since Tuesday night and the hacker group Anonymous is taking responsibility.

City spokeswoman Karen Boyd said she began receiving reports that the websites were down Tuesday night. The websites have been down intermittently since then, but Boyd said she could not confirm the source of the problem.

Numerous Twitter accounts associated with the hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the takedown after the police response to ongoing protests in the East Bay. The group also claimed to take down the Oakland police Twitter account, but appears to have targeted an account unassociated with Oakland police.

It’s not the first time that Anonymous has become involved in Bay Area politics — the group defaced websites associated with BART in 2011 in response to protests over the fatal police shooting of Charles Hill at the Civic Center BART station in San Francisco.