The controversial Web forum domelights.com has been disabled following a Police Department investigation into alleged threats made against the president of a black police officer’s organization that sued the site for allowing posters to leave racist remarks. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey launched the investigation Wednesday, two days after the Guardian Civic League filed a request for a court injunction to ban officers from using the site while on duty.
Since the request was filed, numerous posts have sprung up targeting League President Rochelle Bilal, including one saying that she should be “gang-raped.” The group filed a federal lawsuit last week that described the site as a forum for racist content that created a hostile environment for black officers. For the last two days, officers from Homeland Security escorted Bilal to and from work and the department had a police cruiser stationed outside of the league’s headquarters on 15th Street near Girard Avenue. But since becoming a vocal critic of some of her fellow officers, Bilal said she’s never taken the same route to work.
“A lot of my people are concerned,” she said. “You got crazy people out there, of course I’m concerned.”
A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 3 to find out the result of the injunction request. The founder of the site, repeatedly identified in the suit as McQ, is believed to be Fred McQuiggan, a police sergeant in Information Technology and Communications Services. In recent postings, McQuiggan, of Torresdale, has said he rejects racist or sexist comments on the site and that he never administers domelights while on duty.
Oh please. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? The forum is shut down because of a minority few that are spewing racist remarks? Escorts to and from work, taking different routes every day? Talk about blowing things out of proportion. I wish I could pull the race card that easily.— br567rj- This is not just about race! This site has attacked women, white black, latino, and asian. It has attacked people of all colors. It's being made racial in lieu of it's timing. You should know that this started "two" years ago. Being that it is being made public now with all the racial news being glorified gives it a racial glow. It is much more than that. You should not be able to attack people period in the manner that it's been done. This is not "Facebook" where your identity is known, people hide behind screen names. And when you become a sworn officer of the law, you lose "Freedom of Speech" while in the actions of your duty.— don369
- I hope the Philadelphia newspapers are proud of themselves now. Factually, no one can prove who posted what. No one can prove it was a police officer. No one can prove is was a "white racist". No one can prove anything. The irony is that the newspapers and Rochelle Bilal have pulled off a "virtual lynching". They made accusations that they did not have to prove in a court of law. And they used the local media and the recent issues at the swimming pool to ignite public opinion resulting in the closure of the website. I ask again, will Rochelle now join me in publicly calling for the blocking of internet access from all city computers to the GCL website, the blackpanthers, the barbarians motorcycle club, etc. Is not all racist content demeaning and hostile to all people? Different sets of rules for different sets of people. To compound the problem, people like Monica Yant Kinney and the editorial board post one sided articles on philly.com and then do not allow commentary rebuttal. I will never purchase another newspaper. I hope Monica and her graffiti pal turned artist have great careers. We reap what we sow, and now we have the female version of Al Sharpton and she is gaining traction on media frenzy rather than adequate police work where someone is actually held accountable. Disgusting.— mikeyg
I fall on the Free Speech side. I am (or was, now that the reverse bigots succeeded in suspending the site) a Domelights poster) (Juris D, and I'm not a cop, and I was often targeted with insults for my less-than standard Conservative opions. But my response wasn't to ever try and shut the idiots up or try, or try and have the site shut down - my response was to offer MORE Free Speech against the small-minded morons. That is, offensive and insuting speech should be countered with MORE speech, not less. The anti-Domelights campaign is strictly a one man (or woman, wait, man..) launched by the GCL's Rochelle Bilal simply because some goofs chose the annonymity of the Domelights slate to insult her, And while at first I did not afree with those goofs opinions, I I felt that Bilal was a decent person and cop, turns out they were likely more riight about her than I was. The serious allegations involving Domelights.com and the workplace are, indeed, serious - but I would bet a huge amount of money that they will all be unfounded and not supported by fact. Indeed, I would equally wager that the very same cops who are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit have accessed and participated in Domelights postings WHILE ON DUTY and on CITY COMPUTERS. Hopefully that will come to light as the legal wrangling progresses. I look froward to the return of Domelights some day soon and I support the advocacy of free and unimpeded speech - even the type that offends or insults me.— med328- This can't be for real. What a violation of the civil rights of anyone who uses a computer to access a web site. I'm offended by what an unknown person has posted on a site so I'm going to have the site closed down. What a crock! Hey Ramsey, you don't deserve a title, you want to try an lock me up for what I just said?— bdriver
- Could you imagine the outrage that would follow if a group of white cops or white anybodies pressured the operators of a website to shut it down because it contained anti-white racist comments? If officers are wasting on-duty time on Domelights, that is a departmental disciplinary issue solved by adjusting firewall settings. If threats are posted, then those individual threats need to be evaluated and investigated, but not at the loss of freedom of expression of the others who use Domelights. The Ku Klux Clan and other white supremacist organizations can maintain websites and there are several sites which advocate the killing of police officers. These sites are permitted to exist because of the First Amendment yet Domelights is shut down?? This is just an attempt at a cash jackpot.— 9eyes
- All white people are redneck cracker idiots who talk funny, can't dance and suck at basketball. Almost all serial killers are white. The white man is the devil! There....Now I can sue Philly.com for allowing anti-white racist comments and demand that Philly.com be taken down.— 9eyes
- The Police dept knows already whose sending these threatening e-mails, racist and sexist material. No problem to trace computer messages. These cops don’t respect the badge or value their jobs. Ramsey can fire whom he pleases, whenever he’s ready. And if it's you; what can you do about it? You can holler free speech, read the Declaration of Independence, Constitution. You are unemployed, fired. In this economy. What does a fired cop get? Minimum wage security guard job? A policeman’s job is unskilled labor. There’s bad element on the force that needs to be broken. And they bring all their racial hatred to work. Fire them and restore the integrity of the Philly PD. The citizens of Philadelphia are outraged. The Mayor and Commish look like incompetents. Shutting down Domelights was the first step in the right direction. No other job would tolerate this.— MsLou
- I can tell you one thing, the Feds should have got involved because there are MANY on the 3rd Floor who post and look at the site while working and I can guaruntee that they will not put there names out there! I don;t agree with the site at all, they attack people and say sexist and racist comments. I would like to know [and I'm mixed] how a white person would feel if they went to work everyday and didn't know the person they were in the patrol car with was up all night on the computer calling people who look like him offensive names? Come on, I've read the post and there were comments by blacks too, however they were after the comments of other nationalities. (THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT RIGHT) This is something I have been wanting to say for a long time...[We] say blacks scream they are being treated different...[We] told them they were different when we bought them here! So it's not there fault [We] didn't treat them equal then or now looking at the comments that are made! I am mixed so I see both side of the fence. Let's put this stuff behind us and move on!— IWONTSHUTUP!
Comment removed.- DAVE/DAF & SCRIBES/TV JOURNOS COVERING BIDEN-HOLDER PHILLY EVENT: Ask whether so-called "community policing" programs have been misused to create a nationwide civilian vigilante "Gestapo" that is violating the civil and human rights of unjustly "targeted" citizens... ...via covertly implanted GPS tracking devices and the deployment of microwave and laser "directed energy weapons" capable of inflicting silent torture, injury and possibly, "slow-kill" death. Such weapons are being deployed to law enforcement nationwide under programs sponsored by DOJ, FEMA/Homeland Security, DOD, etc. Press Biden and Holder on the constitutionality of this secret program's endorsement of the warrantless covert implantation of GPS devices on the vehicles of American citizens -- and the covert use of personal cellphones to track citizen "targets." Ask whether this secret program of extrajudicial targeting and punishment encourages rogue behavior on the part of law enforcement... ...as appears to be the case in the Professor Gates police home invasion and arrest. For more: http://nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america OR (if link is corrupted / disabled): http://NowPublic.com/scrivener RE: "GESTAPO USA"— aviben
- Why don't they shut down the left wing lunatics at DailyKos? The bile that is spewed there is worse than anything that appears at the Jersey shore. Hate filled rants against anyone who disagrees with them is standard procedure. Now you know why you have to vote REPUBLICAN ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!— WriteWinger
- Are there any caucasian members of the Guardian Civic League? An organization whose membership is limited to one race and exludes another race (asian and caucasian, for example) is - by definition - racist. Can one of you journalists please cover this angle of this story?— michael_b
- The Jersey Shore? What does that have to do with Domelights, racism, or the GCL? MOST posters on Domelights were thought-provoking and respectful, but there were a number of ignorant, uneducated, racist morons. Yeah, vote Republican - because there's no IQ test to get a voter registration card, and Bush set the bar just that low.— med328
14 comments
About The PhillyConfidential team
Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.
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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.
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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.
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Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.
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