Thousands of locals who are subscribed to the city’s Alert Long Beach emergency notification system got an odd message Saturday afternoon asking if they wanted to cover an overtime shift for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The text read: “Anyone want Air 8 pilot OT tomorrow the 24th? Contact Sgt. Schuerger or the desk.”
A few hours later, a follow-up message read: “Please disregard the last message about Pilot OT. That was sent in error. Thank you.”
The text, sent by the Sheriff’s Department Aero Bureau, was distributed to about 100,000 people throughout the county, said Long Beach city spokesperson Johnathan Garcia.
Los Angeles County and Alert Long Beach use the same alerting platform, called CodeRed, Garcia said.
“We are working with our vendor to understand how the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Aero Bureau distributed this message to Alert Long Beach recipients,” Garcia said in a statement.
Confused residents took to Reddit Saturday afternoon to figure out who else received the errant message.
A post in the Long Beach subreddit titled “Wrong group chat, officer” garnered over 100 likes and 43 comments.
Garcia confirmed that the text did not originate from the Long Beach Police Department or the Alert Long Beach emergency notification system.
The city’s Emergency Communications and Operations Center is the only agency that sends text messages through Alert Long Beach, at least in typical circumstances, he said.
The service has been used recently for emergencies like the boil-water notice related to a water main break in the California Heights neighborhood in mid-October.
The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to questions about how the message ended up going to Alert Long Beach subscribers — or if the overtime shift got covered.
Long Beach residents can sign up for Alert Long Beach here to receive voice, text or email notifications in the case of an emergency, severe weather or any incident that impacts city operations.