There are some disturbing claims of racism in the Philadelphia Police Department. African-American officers have filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that the department allowed fellow officers to post "blatantly racist, anti-minority, and offensive content” on a popular Web site used by police officers.
Rochelle Bilal is a Philadelphia police officer and the president of the Guardian Civic League, an African-American police organization. She and the league’s attorney, Brian Mildenberg, spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.
Kiran Chetry: Michelle, just set the stage. This Web site is called domelights.com. What is it?
Rochelle Bilal: It's supposed to be a forum where police officers can discuss the ills of society.
Chetry: All right. And what has it sort of turned into? When did you notice it turned into a site where there was a lot of racial bashing going on?
Bilal: Probably when they kicked me out after I went on to try to discuss some of the things that was going on and I was kicked out. From that point I haven't went on it.
Chetry: Brian, you have been monitoring this Web site for ten years? Did you bring it to the attention of the department that you thought perhaps there were some things written on here that were not in the best interest of a lot of the police officers on the force?
Brian Mildenberg: We haven't been monitoring the site for ten years. The site has been up for ten years. My law firm investigated the site for the past year. And there have been racist postings on this Web site from day one by the active duty Philadelphia police sergeant who created this Web site. The Web site contains very racist postings like this one, which says “guns don't kill people, dangerous minorities do.”
It contains all kinds of racist rants and raves. And the scary thing is that the people participating in this Web site, that's being run by an active Philadelphia police sergeant, are other police officers, including captains and lieutenants of the Philadelphia police force. We're learning in recent days that Internet access is apparently restricted in the police force to only higher level police officials. So we're learning that apparently this is reaching up to the higher levels of the captains and lieutenants and sergeants in the Philadelphia police force who are apparently posting racist commentary and materials against African-Americans and intimidating racist commentary against African-Americans and against Rochelle Bilal in particular. They are posting these on the Internet.
Chetry: You are saying that after the lawsuit came to light – this suit that you are filing – it started to get pretty personal about Rochelle?
Mildenberg: That's right. They made some remarks that are very difficult to even discuss here. Including: suggesting that she should be, heaven forbid, sexually assaulted; calling her all kinds of the worst type of racial names that one could imagine.
Chetry: I read it too. And it isn't comfortable to talk about on television. A couple of the other ones that are not as offensive as some – here's one of the other postings on this site: “In urban areas it seems [African-Americans] living on welfare in paid-for housing is ingrained in their culture, as well as fighting.” You mentioned some of the people you think are behind this Web site. Who do you think, Rochelle, is behind a lot of this? Given that these are all officers who are supposed to be, basically, a fraternity of police officers working with one another.
Bilal: Cowards. Bigots with badges. They go on here and express their hurtful, hateful racist views because they are afraid to stand up and face people toe-to-toe with their comments. Cowards.
Chetry: Brian, this Web site is not run by the city. We asked the Philadelphia Police Department for comment and they declined, saying it's not a city-sanctioned site. Do you still believe the police department in the city of Philadelphia is responsible?
Mildenberg: I do, because while it may not be sanctioned, apparently, by the city according to their official policy – it's being run by captains, lieutenants, sergeants. These are high level law enforcement officers of the city of Philadelphia. You can't hide behind – you can’t say officially we don't sanction it and then have your managers and officers and agents of the police force being the ones conspiring to place it there and to post on it.