Gay Porn In The Police Station

WILMINGTON, ILLINOIS - One January day, former Wilmington police dispatcher Kathy Shea opened the Internet browser on her work computer to find, she says, that someone had been viewing gay pornography.
Shocked, Shea said she told a supervisor that the Web site had appeared in a drop-down menu logging the Web pages visited on the dispatchers' computer.
Present and former department employees said former patrol officer Brandon Ragsdale told a supervisor that he had seen a male officer checking out porn on the computer.
At a March staff meeting, police employees were told the computer had been used to access pornography nearly 100 times between January and March.
Police Chief Wally Evans said an investigation found that the computer was used to access pornography starting in September, but it was unclear who was responsible.
"Where this incident occurred -- this was open to other agencies, other departments," he said Friday. "We've taken steps to eliminate (inappropriate Internet use)."
Alderman Joseph Mietzner said he was disappointed anyone in the department was viewing porn but that he supported Evans and his response. Web filters were put on the computer, and users now must sign in.
"That is a very frustrating situation," Mietzner said. "Do you expect that in your police department? No -- it's the police department! But people make mistakes."
Shea, who had been a Wilmington dispatcher for 10 years, says she was the only one ever punished.
'It's a mess'
She said she was given a five-day suspension after mentioning the scandal to a Will County sheriff's deputy and saying she couldn't see why no discipline was ever handed down.
After her suspension, Shea quit and said she has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission/Illinois Human Rights Department.
City officials confirmed that a complaint has been filed.
Since January, the Wilmington Police Department, staffed by 12 full-time and six part-time officers, has found itself embroiled in controversy.
Police officers in other departments say privately they try to steer clear of Wilmington.
"It is a mess, that's all I'm going to say, and I don't know what's going to happen," Wilmington Alderwoman Helen Hoppe said. "There's a lot of issues in that police department."
Another issue surfaced in April when someone cut out a newspaper picture of a group of children and taped it up.
The person put a caption above the head of a Hispanic child, according to police employees who saw it, that read something like: "Hey kids, help me get my squad car out of the mud, and then we'll hit the showers."
It was a reference, police officers said, to a Hispanic officer who recently had gotten his squad car stuck in the mud. This was the same officer whom Ragsdale alleged had been looking at gay porn on the dispatcher's computer.
from The Herald News