Cop group gets ban on controversial Web site

The Guardian Civic League filed for a court injunction yesterday to ban on-duty cops from using the Web site domelights.com, an unofficial online forum for Philadelphia police officers, the group's attorney said.

Since filing a lawsuit Thursday against the city, the Police Department and the site's owner, believed to be Sgt. Fred McQuiggan, 47, racial comments have increased, League President Rochelle Bilal said yesterday at a news conference inside the headquarters of the black police officers' group, at 15th Street near Girard Avenue.

"The site has gotten pervertedly worse," Bilal said.

According to the suit, many of the posts are made throughout the day, by on- and off-duty white officers using city computers.

On Friday, the department added the site to the its list of restricted Web sites.

The department is "limiting access to all police computers," said Chief Michael Feeney, of information technology and communication services. "Whoever needs access to it, [they] have to make a request."

Brian Mildenberg, the attorney who filed the suit on the group's behalf, said that for years black police officers - who allege that they are often targets of derogatory comments - have complained about their white colleagues, including supervisors, using the site while at work.

Comments such as "Guns Don't Kill People. Dangerous Minorities Do," were posted last year. A recent post referred to Northeast Philadelphia campers who were turned away from a Huntingdon Valley swim club as "monkeys."

Mildenberg said yesterday that one user had written that Bilal should be "gang-raped."

"We're not trying to take anyone's civil rights," he said. "In the workplace, free speech is restricted. You cannot create intentionally abusive and harassing language."

The privately registered Web site, created in 2000, has nearly 6,000 users and is not sanctioned by the city or the Police Department.

Some of the site's posts in various discussion boards have created a hostile environment for some black officers in the workplace, Bilal said.

"It started to turn from discussion to attacks on people of color," she said. "They're all personal attacks."

A police source who occasionally posts on the site and who asked not to be identified said that only a handful of users write these racist comments.

Calls from the Daily News to McQuiggan, a 23-year veteran, went unanswered.