What began as a story about racist remarks made by a Chicago firefighter on a department radio and subsequent comments on an "unofficial fire department website", has turned into an investigative report about a message board on an "unofficial police website". The only problem is, that message board on that unofficial police website has been offline since the late 1990s. However, not willing to rest until they had uncovered the secret of this online "Al Capone's vault" the investigative reporting team continued to dig until they unearthed their story -- a story about hidden, racist submissions to the website. Well, gentle reader, if you have the time or the interest, here is ... the rest of the story.

In the Fall of 1997, a Chicago Police Officer -- a graphic designer by training and an entrepreneur at heart -- had a dream of building a website. A website where he could bring "Chicago Police Officers, and the people who love them, closer together both online and off." A website for the "real police". A website where he could peddle t-shirts and other police collectibles. That dream came to fruition in The Police Officers Network, a.k.a. The PONetwork.com.

For years the site plodded along, sharing Real Stories of the CPD, Info for the Police, Police Humor, Cop Art, and other items of interest to site visitors. With the addition of a chat room, a real "community" began to develop. A message board was later added ... and then things got ugly.

You see, the message board was designed by its creator to be a place for website visitors to go ask questions, trade patches, and exchange ideas ... which worked for a while. But then message-board abusers climbed on-board, both pro-police and anti-police. Comments were often exchanged which were racist, sexist, or down-right mean. Cleaning up the message board became a full-time job. A job which was more than a police officer with a family and other outside interests, could maintain. So in 1999, the message board came down.

Eventually, maintaining the site at all became a chore, and the site fell into further decline. The website was kept online so the entrepreneur could entertain annual hopes of resurrecting the website, the latest occurring in December of 2003. But, alas, to no avail.

Flash forward to March of 2004, and a controversy involving the Chicago Fire Department spurs interest in a personal police website, long since active, long since relevant. But the investigative team dug deep and dug hard and discovered a couple of articles which some may find offensive, some may find hurtful, some may find worthy of showing on the 10:00 news.

Well, take a look around. See what you think. And then let me know. (I'll be doing the same, as some of these articles are really buried.) Below you will find a section for submitting your comments. Do you feel the website fans the flames of racism? Do you want to see the website shut down? Can any good come of all this?

As always, I look forward to your response.

Stay safe.

Russell Schultz
Webmaster

P.S. I don't know if the investigative team will bother returning to read your comments. You may want to drop them an email on their website.

P.P.S. While I value the opinions of the PONetwork visitors, I have gone ahead and removed the most heinous articles mentioned on the investigative report. They were bad. They were from 1998. Back in the early days of the website just about everything was posted to generate dialogue. They got buried in the archives and are now gone. There's bound to be more, so we'll keep digging (with your assistance) and keep removing. Thank you for your continued support!