A DECORATED New York police officer has been dismissed for running a website called the Rant, which was used by policemen to vent their spleen against the top brass.

Under the screen name Polecat, Edward Polstein enabled his fellow officers to spill the New York Police Department’s secrets, such as “fudging” homicide statistics and its lack of preparedness for a terrorist attack.

Mr Polstein himself complained that the NYPD was run like the Nazi Party and posted a picture of Adolf Hitler addressing his storm troopers.

“I would rant about all the corruption, physical and mental abuse cops have to deal with, from Commissioner Kelly down to their immediate supervisor,” Mr Polstein wrote in a recent post.

Mr Polstein, an officer for 18 years, started the Rant in 1999, having been passed over for promotion. The site took off among disgruntled officers, averaging 60,000 hits a day. But it also attracted the attention of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau, which investigates police misconduct.

Mr Polstein got in trouble when he conducted his own test of security at NYPD headquarters at Police Plaza after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Using fake police identification, he smuggled a bag containing plastic knives, a stun gun and mock C4 explosives into police headquarters, then alerted the duty sergeant.

When he posted details of his test he was charged with a security breach, and accused of misusing NYPD logos on his site and of posting “language, remarks or symbols which were discourteous to ranking members of the New York City Police Department and New York City elected officials”.

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