But, I didn't create it and nobody told me they were doing it, so who did it was a mystery... Using WHOIS to look up who might have done this led nowhere as well because they used a proxy through godaddy.com to register the domain name:
So, I posted about it and it made a lot of people curious, especially because of the disclaimer at the bottom:
After all, why use the phrase "not necessarily" if you weren't a member of those organizations?
So, I looked at the site again after getting another message about it and noticed a very curious tag attached to some of the links... I looked at the source code of the page (something you can do by clicking "View" then "Page Source" on your browser) and sure enough:
It really started to look like some police officers decided to try and copy this site at a similar domain name for some reason, especially with the "A page to support to officers of the Seattle Police Department" bit.
At the least we think that it's an underhanded attempt to siphon off the traffic to this site and keep people from reading about cases of police misconduct. But with the addition of an email form like the one they have put up, we worry that it might also serve as a way for the SPD to keep stories of misconduct from coming to light and intimidate those who try to complain about incidents of police misconduct.
I'll keep everyone posted if I find out more. In the meantime, if anyone has some ideas as to what they were trying to accomplish or who it might be, I'm definitely all ears.
Is Portland an acceptable substitute for Seattle? If they have involved citizens like this guy, yes!
ReplyDeleteCan't afford to move anywhere yet, but we're working on it.
ReplyDeleteAs for that story, that's great! It's nice to see someone who's not afraid to stand up and do what's right by making sure everyone follows the laws and that they're enforced evenly and justly!
Thanks for the comment!