Riverside County: Suspect arrested for broadcasting fire/police radio threats

Threats broadcast on police, fire radios

Hemet police arrested a woman early today suspected of broadcasting threats at police on emergency radio frequencies.
Irene Marie Levy, 29, of San Jacinto was arrested at her mobile home in the 900 block of S. Grand Avenue on suspicion of criminal threats.
Police said Levy, who is a Ham Radio technician, made bomb threats and referenced the death of police and firefighters.
The threats were not connected to previous threats and attacks on Hemet police and the Hemet-San Jacinto Valley Gang Task Force since New Year's Eve, authorities said. Officers have received death threats and been targeted in assassination attempts by an unknown gang
Levy disguised her voice as a man while operating her radio and broadcasting on Cal Fire and Hemet police frequencies from Saturday night until she was arrested early Monday, Hemet police Sgt. Mark Richards said in a report.
The threats came as firefighters were responding to a brush fire near Beaumont and conducting a search and rescue call. The threats also interrupted a fatal traffic collision in Hemet on Saturday night. A bomb threat was radioed in early Sunday.
Riverside County fire communications officials used direction finding equipment to triangulate the transmissions, but they were initially untraceable because the threats were made sporadically. Riverside police were notified Sunday to track the signals.
Sunday evening, "Levy boasted that the police would never find her," Richards said.
Hemet police, Cal Fire and Riverside police arrested Levy early Monday following a recently completed threat on a Hemet police frequency. At the home police found 11 radios, seven frequency scanners, frequency lists, computer equipment and Levy's Ham radio technician's license issued by the FCC in September 2009, Richards said.
Levy was booked at the Larry Smith Detention Center in lieu of $25,000 bail on suspicion of making terrorist threats, falsely reporting a bomb threat and maliciously interrupting, disrupting, impeding, or interfering with a transmission of a public radio frequency.

Article source: By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise 
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Reach John Asbury at 951-763-3451 or jasbury@PE.com