By SUE CARLTON, Times Columnist
Published August 17, 2005
Local cops have been using a Web site called LeoAffairs.com to do
what lots of work colleagues do - chat, grouse and gossip about the
bosses.
The Web site has message boards for dozens of police agencies,
and some recent talk on one dedicated to the Hillsborough Sheriff's
Office sounded pretty useful: the merits of certain guns, 12-hour
shifts, take-home cars.
But some past postings have been uglier. Writers using anonymous
screen names have made allegations of affairs, womanizing and
ineptitude. References have been made to "Davey the Boy Wonder,"
presumably the undeniably earnest Sheriff David Gee. More seriously,
some messages on LeoAffairs.com have contained racist and homophobic
language.
The Sheriff's Office calls some of the chatter defamatory,
devastating to morale and a threat to the ability to perform as cops.
(Some posts, officials said, published details of an undercover
operation.)
If those sound like fighting words, they are. The Sheriff's Office
is suing, asking a judge to issue an injunction, and seeking to reveal
the identities of "one or more unknown John/Jane Does," or cops who
have posted certain messages. Circuit Judge Marva Crenshaw will hear
the matter later this month.
Chief Deputy Jose Docobo says this isn't about free speech, it's
about speech that undermines the integrity of law enforcement in the
community cops serve. "This is about an employer having the right to
control the conduct of his employees," he says.
I don't know if tales told on the site are true. Much of it sounds
like grade school, when a mean kid told a bad story about you and it
spread before you had a chance to deny it. What's the saying? A lie
goes halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.
One truth here is that what's on LeoAffairs.com is free speech, and should be protected.
The frustration of sheriff's officials is understandable - easy,
isn't it, to throw out insults behind a snarky screen name? It's harder
to see why they would respond to gossip with such heavy-handed tactics.
If what's posted needs to be investigated - details of an
undercover investigation, or racist attitudes in the department - by
all means, investigate them. Otherwise, why dignify the site?
Sticks and stones, sheriff. Let 'em talk.
What's probably not free speech, however, is a garden - if your neighbors can't see around it.
Trisha Davies has grown a lush green wonder around her Hyde Park
home, one that has netted her more than $75,000 in city fines over the
last few years. Officials say her green thumb has resulted in blocked
drivers' views and pedestrians prevented from passing.
Davies' garden is something to behold, a wild tangle of blossoms
and greenery. But city code doesn't care whether it strikes you as
terribly beautiful or just terrible. Judge James Dominguez is expected
to rule in the case Sept. 22.
And finally, some speech you almost wish wasn't free.
Derick Cooper was cited last week for spray-painting the words "Die
you miserable b----" in black on the side of a house he owns in Pasco
County. The message was believed to be aimed at a neighbor, a
73-year-old woman dying of cancer.
Yes, those words were free speech. Still, Cooper was cited because,
officials said, the words exceeded the size allowed for a sign in a
residential area.
In another incident, Guy Cote of Tampa was on his way to a movie at
St. Pete's BayWalk last month when, he said, an antiwar protester
noticed his Operation Iraqi Freedom T-shirt and asked if he'd been to
Iraq. Cote said no, his brother had just come home.
"He said they're killing innocent people over there and he wished my brother came home in a body bag," Cote told Times reporter Alex Leary.
Yes, that's free speech. But if you're a big believer in karma, you
might not want to be standing near Cooper or that protester in a
lightning storm.
