UPDATE - Tomorrow's Headlines Today
Well, we've been in business just under two months, had 2200 visitors, had some nice little give and take and finally, someone posted the word "nigger" in the comments section. This is not unexpected. Believe us, we are under no illusions about this website being a "bathroom wall" type of outlet for various viewpoints, stories and the like. We've done all we can to remain as anonymous as our posters because we feel that this give and take of opinion and information benefits everyone. We've tried to be sly, snide, even provocative, leaving certain things unsaid that we assume everyone knows or can deduce our opinion of. However, as the moderator and owner of the site, we'd rather this not turn into something the general public (yes, this is a public board) and political creatures can use against us or the department as a whole. If that means turning off the comments until everyone calms down, we can do that. If that means shutting down the comments completely, we can do that, too. But then no one gets to participate because of a few assholes. We definitely don't want to start registering users because that leads to a list that can be tracked. So a friendly reminder: keep it reasonably clean and free of the racial bullshit. Pretend it's a room of people you don't know (which it is) and you'd like to make a decent impression (which you actually might) and dazzle the readers with your wit and charm rather than your crudity.
By the way, we deleted the comment. Our board, our rules. You don't like it, go start your own board and make the effort we've made to generate publicity, generate interest and have adult conversations with other coppers. Save the other stuff for the bar with the crowd you know.
By the way, we deleted the comment. Our board, our rules. You don't like it, go start your own board and make the effort we've made to generate publicity, generate interest and have adult conversations with other coppers. Save the other stuff for the bar with the crowd you know.
posted by SCC at 6:00 PM
4 Comments:
Kudos to you, Mr. Moderator. Yes there is a freedom of speech issue, but use of that word just makes the police look bad. Like it's been always said, coppers ruin it for other coppers.
The government shall make no law restricting speech. The moderator isn't a government, so he's right: his Board, his rules. There is no freedom of speech issue here, but even as it pains me to partially agree with lefty here, coppers too often ruin it for other coppers. We really don't need the grief on this board.
Bravo to all of you and especially to Mr. Moderator. We can argue, debate, comisserate, and even berate Mr. Meeks, JJ jr., Phil Cline, Dana Starks, Maria Soto Mahar, Jimmie Mauer, and just about anybody else including da Mayor, but we don't have to be lewd, crude, and abusive about it.
Thanks.
NYPD Blogger Fired
From WCBS-TV, July 13
NEW YORK, NY – NYPD Rant is an Internet cop bar, a place for officers to swap war stories, trade insults and launch diatribes against light-fingered firefighters, dimwitted "perps" and other targets.
Its inflammatory contents prompted a New York Police Department investigation that resulted in the firing last week of the veteran officer who founded the Web site. This week former officer Edward Polstein said he is planning a First Amendment lawsuit, sending public debate swirling around a site loaded with offensive material that could be embarrassing to a department that has worked hard to polish its image.
"I told the truth on there," Polstein said. "The job doesn't want civilians knowing about all the corruption and all the abuse."
The NYPD filed internal charges against Polstein after he posted an image of Adolf Hitler to illustrate his complaints about Commissioner Raymond Kelly's management of the department.
Polstein also violated regulations by smuggling plastic knives, fake explosives and other weapons into police headquarters in what he called a self-devised test of internal security, the department said. Polstein said he was simply trying to offer guards free instruction on filling the building's security gaps.
Polstein, 43, was found guilty last year of violations that included posting "language, remarks or symbols which were discourteous to ranking members of the New York Police Department and New York City elected officials."
A department trials commissioner recommended Polstein be fired but Kelly offered to let the 18-year veteran retire if he left the department immediately, chief police spokesman Paul Browne said. Polstein agreed but pushed for a richer three-quarters salary disability pension after a department medical board ruled in March that he was suffering from injuries sustained in the line of duty.
Browne said that violated Polstein's agreement with the department, which retroactively fired the officer last week.
Polstein filed a discrimination charge with the state Division of Human Rights Monday and he said he is planning to sue the department for violating his First Amendment rights.
Newspaper stories about the dispute Tuesday were drawing tens of thousands of Web surfers from around the country to the site. Posters claiming to be NYPD officers contributed to inflammatory threads that included, "You know you're in the ghetto when ..., " which listed a series of offensive stereotypes about black neighborhoods.
Other threads attacked firefighters as prone to stealing from fire victims and lauded the recent robbery arrest of a black man who was accosted last month by whites in Howard Beach, Queens as proof that the alleged racial incident was "street justice."
Browne said the department's Internal Affairs Bureau does not monitor the site and there is no way of verifying whether site contributors are actually police officers.
"The Internet can be a vehicle for anonymous venom in all walks of life," he said.
But Edward Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, said that there were some obvious impostors on the site but he believed most of the contributors were authentic.
"This is an area where cops talk and discuss that are going on in the department," Mullins said. "If the department's concerned about their image then they need to address that from within."
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