California Conservative

Less cops on the street, and here comes the “sensitivity training”

S.F. Chronicle reports: “About 20 San Francisco police officers will be suspended because of their alleged involvement in what the mayor and police chief describe as videos that mock minorities and treat women as sex objects, the officials said Wednesday night.

Here we go again. Another video that wasn’t meant to be seen by the public is exposed by the MSM.

“This is a dark day — an extremely dark day — in the history of the San Francisco Police Department for me as a chief to have to stand here and share with you such egregious, shameful and despicable acts by members of the San Francisco Police Department,” Chief Heather Fong said at a City Hall press conference.

An officer at the department’s Bayview Station, who is among those ordered suspended, produced the videos over the past two years using other officers and acquaintances and intended them as morale boosters, he and his attorney said Wednesday night. The officer denied he had done anything wrong, and his attorney said the suspensions were a politically motivated attack on free speech.

Chris Rock gets paid a fortune for this kind of thing.

But in far-Left San Francisco, free speech is reserved for only those who attack what’s Right. Special interests make the rules.

Watch the video here

The five videos shown at Wednesday’s press conference with Fong and Mayor Gavin Newsom depict officers, some in uniform, responding to a variety of mock calls. One video shows a homeless black woman railing against white people after apparently being hit by a patrol car, followed by an officer grumbling about having to deal with her. “They get us involved with their business,” the officer said.

Another video depicts an officer ogling a woman he has stopped for a traffic violation. One shows two officers attempting tai chi to vaguely Asian music. The two later go into a massage parlor and radio dispatchers try unsuccessfully to reach them — the suggestion being the two are having sex with masseuses.

One video, with the theme to the old TV show “Love Boat” as the soundtrack, shows various officers saying, “Oh, captain,” and flicking their tongues suggestively. The captain involved, Bruce, flicks his tongue in apparent response — although the officer who produced the videos said Bruce had not known what the shot was to be used for.

One of those depicted in that sequence is the same homeless woman who was earlier shown yelling about white people. Another is a police officer dressed as a transgender person.

In another video, a female officer is shown putting on lipstick in the middle of a mock drug raid.

Newsom called the videos the tipping point that will lead to changing the culture of the Police Department.

Isn’t that what he said when he appointed Heather Fong as Police Chief? Nothing but politics.

“Enough is enough,” said Newsom, who promised dramatic changes, including the creation of a panel to review the entire department’s operations.

That’s what police are probably thinking every day. They have to deal with the trash of society — yes, the trash of society, and if you’ve never been on patrol, you can’t complain about being insensitive — they do it for low-pay, high-risk (including death), hard work and no public respect.

We’d like to see Gavin Newsom spend some time in the line of fire.

The mayor, who consulted in his office with his chief political strategist, Eric Jaye, before starting the press conference, said he would convene the panel today. He also has asked the city Human Rights Commission and the city Commission on the Status of Women to conduct their own investigations.

Political strategist, of course. Human Rights Commission? Isn’t that part of the U.N. And we thought it just felt sometimes like living in Bosnia.

Commission on the Status of Women? This requires a commission? Not covered enough by Human Rights? Not in San Francisco.

The videos have the potential to turn into one of the biggest crises of Newsom’s 2-year-old administration. Their revelation comes as the mayor faces demands from African American leaders, in particular, to do something about a homicide rate that is at its highest level in a decade. The Bayview Station serves Bayview-Hunters Point and surrounding neighborhoods with large black populations, where many of the slayings have occurred.

So, here’s a radical concept: maybe the problem isn’t with the police, but rather the population.

Newsom said lawyers in both the city attorney’s and district attorney’s offices have reviewed the videos, which suggests that officials are looking at whether criminal charges should be filed.

Newsom said the videos mocked African Americans, Asians, women and transgender people.

The conduct, he said, “is shameful. It is offensive, it is sexist. It is homophobic, it is racist, and we’re going to make sure it ends.”

This coming from the man who liberals once accused of ethnic cleansing? He should know better.

Oh, Gavin. Why don’t you just come out of the closet, finally? Your fake wife is no longer necessary.

[Fong] said command staff would fan into all the district stations and investigative bureaus starting today to make clear that the department has no tolerance for conduct that makes fun of others. The department already requires that all officers undergo sensitivity training.

Officer Andrew Cohen, 39, who works at Bayview Station, said he was the producer of the videos. He was suspended without pay Tuesday.

Cohen? Isn’t that a Jewish name? Maybe he can sue for something. After all, it’s a grab bag of special interests and you’ve got to play by San Francisco rules. And minorities rule.

In a phone interview, Cohen said he had worked as a liaison to the department’s public affairs unit and had produced nine videos in his 10 years on the force, some of them humorous but others dealing with training issues.

The videos that got him suspended “started out as a fun-and-games thing to give a sendoff” to Bruce, Cohen said. “It was supposed to show the cute characters we have at the station, kind of to make fun of ourselves.”

He said the goal of the videos was “to boost the morale of law enforcement” and that they were never intended to be shown outside the ranks.

Cohen expressed amazement that “this micromanaging chief” would be worried about videos with the homicide total for the year nearing 100. “She has bigger fish to fry,” Cohen said.

Exactly. But it’s far easier to give a press conference and vilify the police, than it is to crack down on the problem. And, given the location, race might have something to do with it. However, the mayor doesn’t want to talk about that. It wouldn’t be politically-correct.

“We’re outgunned. We’re outmanned,” Cohen said. “The fact of the matter is that she has an out-of-control department. She lives in the Bayview and has never stopped by the station to see her own officers.

“She doesn’t have much confidence of the rank and file. She’s putting a nail in her coffin.”

Outgunned? Outmanned? Why didn’t the mayor ever hold a press conference over that?

Cohen said he had carte blanche with police chiefs going back to Fred Lau to make videos for the department. “In fact, this is the fourth humorous one I’ve done and I’ve never had any flak,” he said. “I’ve never been in trouble before in my life. This is not me.”

He has retained attorney Daniel Horowitz, and said neither of them had been told about Wednesday night’s press conference in advance.

Horowitz managed to get to the tail end of the event and in interviews berated Fong and Newsom. “They’re cowards. The mayor is a coward, and so is the chief,” he said.

Someone had to say it.

Horowitz, who said he has been friends with Cohen for 20 years, said the officer was raised a Berkeley liberal and “is the opposite of a homophobe, the opposite of a racist.”

Take that, Gavin. Cohen has got the Berkeley card. You can’t trump that.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 8th, 2005 at 8:51 am and is filed under Liberals, San Francisco, Special Interests. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.