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KING 5's Investigators have their panties in a bunch about the racist and pornographic emails Port of Seattle police were sending on Port time, using Port computers. In their story, they can hardly bring themselves to present the liberally pixelized graphic evidence. Again and again. It turns out, "over a two-year period, 32 officers -- nearly a third of the entire force -- either received, saved, or passed on more than 175 inappropriate e-mails, including sexually explicit and pornographic images and racist videos and jokes."
The P-I gives a more detailed rundown:
Other e-mails showed sexually graphic and demeaning pictures of women, including images of them defecating on each other, having sex and performing oral sex. Still others contained images of a woman kicking a naked and bound man in the crotch, and a video of a woman whose tube-top is yanked down by a stranger on the street.
The Port, naturally, has rules against this sort of thing, rules that aren't invalidated by prefacing your email with: "It's so wroooong, but so FUNNY!" It gets less funny when you learn how they stumbled upon the emails in the first place. KING reports:
The trail of misconduct, abuse of trust and broken policies begins with Sgt. Jon Schorsch.He's a cop with a troubled past on paid leave from the Port of Seattle Police Department. Last spring, he was charged with stalking an ex-girlfriend.
Port police seized his computer to see if he'd sent unwanted e-mails from work. They found that - and a lot more.
What's upset people further is that the earliest evidence of porn on Port computers surfaced back in 1997. That officer was exonerated, and the P-I says "then-Port of Seattle police Chief Patrick Kasnick wrote that Anderson's behavior 'left the potential for such abuses to continue to be committed by others.'"
This time, to make sure no one misunderstands, Chief Timothy Kimsey (who has refused media interviews) has handed out 9 or 10 strongly worded letters of reprimand, and we're told there will be a sensitivity seminar. So rest easy. A strongly worded reprimand never fails!
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I wonder how they obtained the graphic evidence. Did the police department have to send them in an e-mail? (oh, the irony)
I believe the Port police actually confiscated their own boxes. How awkward.
So who polices the Port of Seattle Police? Is there some sort of pecking order involved? While the Port Police PC's are being checked maybe they should scan all employee's PC's -- I doubt it's the police only who have nasty stuff sent or opened.
Dale: That's a great question, especially since Port of Seattle officers were implicated in what's being called "E-gate." A persistent problem with the Port's operation is reliable oversight. In this case, the evidence certainly points to a work culture that accepts inappropriate email, and you do wonder if a sensitivity seminar -- even an online one! -- will change all that much.
Actually, due to an oversight in the state constitution, the Port of Seattle police are a supergovernmental organization with the right to strike down any portion of the state constitution, the U.S. constitution, and even the U.N. charter.
They are permitted to use torture, confine anyone without access to counsel, and add ketchup to whatever they're served at Canlis.
Don't you mean "Pooh-Pooh" Get it right. Even us weak minded Southerners learned English.
"Po-Po" is a slang term for "police."