Hamden Council Meeting ‘Zoom-Bombed’ With Hateful Comments

HAMDEN, CT — Monday night’s Hamden Legislative Council meeting was canceled after “Zoom bombers” hacked and disrupted the online meeting with racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments, according to the New Haven Register.

The Register reports that while some of the comments were generally racist and homophobic, some comments were pointed at council members. The meeting was canceled before it was officially convened.

Council members Brad Macdowall, D-At-Large, and Justin Farmer, D-5, addressed the incident in a joint statement on Facebook.

“In addition to denouncing such hateful rhetoric, the Council must take responsibility and be more prepared,” they wrote in the post on Monday night. “This was avoidable, as the vulnerability was caused by a last-minute change to the meeting. After the attacks on Hamden's IT systems over the last year and a half and suffering the consequences of being unprepared, we ought to do better. We have urged leadership to consult IT professionals including our internal IT Department and our Technology Commission on these matters in the future. It is imperative that we are protecting our infrastructure from these kinds of malicious attacks.

“We are also disappointed that tonight's Council business has been postponed until tomorrow evening, which means it will interfere with tomorrow's public hearing on the budget. While the public hearing will still be taking place, it will be interrupted with a break during which we will address the business that should have been addressed tonight. The public hearing will continue after that business has been addressed. We absolutely must ensure that everyone's voice is heard on all of these matters.”

The public hearing for the town side of Mayor Curt Balzano Leng’s proposed budget has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 23 via Zoom. All comments for the Board of Education’s public hearing (Wednesday, April 22) and the town’s public hearing will be via email only. Officials said the comments need to be emailed to lcpublicinput@hamden.com up to one half hour before each hearing and they will be read into the record and will also be posted to the town website.

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A New Haven Board of Alders meeting was also “Zoom-bombed” on Monday night. In a separate incident earlier this month, a Madison teen was arrested and charged with computer crimes after he "intentionally" disrupted a school Zoom online classroom by providing access to the class to a "Zoom-bomber" who used "obscene language and gestures," police said.

Madison police said they found the Daniel Hand High School student and charged him with fifth-degree computer crime, conspiracy to commit fifth-degree computer crime and breach of peace.