A 22-year veteran of the Chicago Fire Department claimed responsibility Thursday for maintaining an Internet chat room for firefighters that includes racist comments and step-by-step instructions on how to make a transmission over a fire radio without getting caught.
Webmaster Richard Anderson rejected calls from aldermen who said the Web site (www.chicagofirehouse.ws) should be shut down. Fire Commissioner James Joyce had pointed to this “underground Web site” when asked Wednesday why officials have only been able to trace one of five racist transmission made on the department’s radio frequencies in a little more than a month.
“I don’t know what the city is beefing about,” said Anderson, a fire engineer. “It’s the 1st Amendment, freedom of speech.”
The city’s top lawyer planned to send a cease-and-desist letter to the Internet site’s operator demanding the site stop displaying the Fire Department logo, said Jennifer Hoyle, city Law Department spokeswoman. Also Thursday, in what officials say was apparently a “copy cat” incident, someone twice broadcast a racial slur over radio frequencies used by the Cook County sheriff’s department.
The slur was uttered at 8:29 a.m. and again one minute later, apparently by the same person, sheriff’s department spokeswoman Sally Daly said.
“It included the use of the `n-word,'” Daly said, declining to elaborate.
Sheriff Michael Sheahan will fire the person if he is a sheriff’s employee, Daly said.
The firefighter who inadvertently made the first racist transmission over an open microphone in a department vehicle Feb. 2 received a 90-day suspension. When more incidents occurred after the firefighter’s punishment, Joyce declared the use of racial slurs a fireable offense.
Those responsible “definitely” should be fired, Mayor Richard Daley said Thursday.
Daley said he had not seen the firefighters’ Web site but suggested there is no way to control it.
“That’s the problem of the 1st Amendment–not only that, but all types of Web sites we see today, talk programs,” the mayor said. “What are you going to do about it? It’s a complicated issue. But it is unacceptable.”
Ordinances prohibit the use of the city’s seal and the symbols of the Police and Fire Departments except for official business, Hoyle said.
“We just want to make sure this is not seen as an official site,” she said.
The Web site features an open message board where anyone can post anonymously under the department’s logo and the heading, “The unofficial bulletin board of the Chicago Fire Department.”
In one recent post, someone wrote an epithet for blacks 81 times before ending with: “Thanks!!!! Working tomorrow and just wanted to get it out of my system!!!!!!!”
Another post referred to fire stations in minority neighborhoods as “ghetto houses.”
And one participant in the forum hoped diversity training that would likely be mandated after the racist radio comments would include watching “The Barbershop,” a movie with an African-American cast set on the South Side.
Several posted messages suggested the Daley administration is using the spate of racist transmissions to deflect attention from the scandal in the city’s Hired Truck Program.
Others in the chat room, however, decried the racist statements as “childish and stupid” and criticized the participant who posted the how-to guide on avoiding detection on fire radios. “I will never bring disgrace to this job or department like whoever is talking on the radio,” wrote “phone call away,” who urged firefighters to turn in the perpetrators of the racist broadcasts.
Anderson said he saw no reason to delete the information about how to avert having a radio transmission traced, which someone with the screen name “In the know” posted to the message board late Tuesday.
“Why should I censor it?” said Anderson. “It’s a chat room. Do you have censorship in a newspaper?”
Anderson also noted a prominently displayed disclaimer that the bulletin board “is not responsible for the opinions or responses of persons that inhabit its pages.”
The site’s Internet address is registered to Michael Kappel, who has been a Chicago firefighter since 1990. Kappel said he cut all ties to it about a year ago because he was uncomfortable with the personal attacks that often surfaced on the message board.
“I had nothing but good intentions,” he said. “A few malicious people ran amok.”
