Posted on 12/08/2005 8:24:59 PM PST by Former Military Chick
SAN FRANCISCO - A police officer who produced videos parodying life on the force was suspended Thursday after the mayor and police chief blasted the vignettes as racist, sexist and homophobic.
Officer Andrew Cohen, 39, said he was suspended for posting inappropriate and unauthorized pictures about the department on the Internet.
"I don't know what's going on," Cohen told The Associated Press. "I've never been in trouble before."
Cohen is one of about 20 officers expected to be disciplined for video clips that Police Chief Heather Fong called "egregious, shameful and despicable."
The skits featured uniformed and plainclothes officers making fun of Asians, blacks, women and gay and transgender people, Mayor Gavin Newsom said. He was particularly offended by a scene showing a white officer in a patrol car running over a black homeless woman.
"It is shameful, it is offensive, it is sexist, it is homophobic and it is racist," Newsom said. "We're going to make sure that it ends, it ends immediately."
The video spoofs were shot over more than a year for a Christmas party, Cohen said. Most of the officers involved, including a captain, worked at the Bayview Station in the city's roughest section, an industrial area with a large minority population and high crime rate.
The department's internal affairs division launched an investigation after the videos were discovered on Cohen's Web site, Inside the SFPD. Other city commissions also were assigned to look into the matter.
Cohen said Fong asked him to meet with her Dec. 14 and he will eventually have a hearing before the Police Commission.
The department did not release the names or ranks of the officers.
"I'm sorry they did it, and I'm sure they are sorry they did it, but do not confuse these videos with how these officers perform in the real world," said Gary Delegnes, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association. "These were meant as comic relief, parodies of police work."
Cohen's lawyer, Daniel Horowitz, said his client was slandered by officials who drew attention to the matter and took the videos out of context.
"I think they wanted to be the poster children for the politically correct attitudes in the city and they misrepresented the contents of the tapes," Horowitz said.
He added that the videos, which have been pulled from the Web site, were not insensitive, although some of the content was sophomoric.
Newsom's spokesman, Peter Ragone, disagreed. "Perhaps Mr. Horowitz is the kind of lawyer who thinks that a white police officer running over a black woman is something to laugh at. We think he stands alone."
:) LOL!
They had black people, asians and women participating in this video and I didn't see any cops putting a gun to their heads! Wackos have no sense of humor at all! I guess cops aren't allowed to have fun.
It looks like the gentleman interviewed earlier on one of the networks.
Bill O'Reilly was right! Let Al-Qaida nuke San Fran Whacko and put it out of its misery.
A bunch of cops get together and replicate the humor seen every night on "South Park" and every raunchy comedy since "Animal House." They're castigated for portraying things that I can see any night of the week on my television. Our culture has really lost its bearings. If these jokes are all right for "MAD TV," why aren't they all right for a couple of guys making a private video?
And what ever happened to "it's something that they did in private, so we shouldn't judge their professional conduct"?
We've gone nuts. Porn is everywhere, yet posting a photo of a partially-clad woman is harassment. Crude humor is epidemic, but you can get fired for jokes that make Chris Rock famous. The best way to reduce sexually transmitted disease is to hand out condoms. Nuts. Insanity. I'll bet this cop is a nice liberal, too, a real PC dude, and is absolutely floored that he's in trouble for this.
LOL...Someone mentioned Reno 911 earlier. Comedy Central should pick this Cohen guy up. I could see myself doing something similar if I had the resources
LOL!
read later
A few more thoughts on this story.
In poor taste perhaps, but, nevertheless poking fun at themselves.
Did someone use poor judgement in their off time, putting together a requested video for a fellow officer's retirement, maybe. With the facts I know now, this has really gotten out of hand. They asked Cohen the resident videographer of this station, wow, Cohen sounds like a real whack job doesn't he.
The department allowed it to remain. This is where I become really angry. The Mayor saw it, knew it was there, who is going to cover his butt to claim he did not know about it ... that is what I am looking for the investigation into the investigation because Newsom's hands are not clean, not by a long shot.
This site was not even indexed. Unless someone affiliated (Newsom) gave it out you could not find it on a general search.
There is a time and place for everything. This was made off duty, for an off duty event. It was never to be considered a training video and well now it just turned into one. In the end, the only butt that seems to be covered, the Mayors.
Oh, isn't San Fran the city of tolerance???
Spoof on Charlie's Angels. Spoof on writing tickets, spoof on stuff that leads to stress and early heart attacks.
On one of the talking head shows, there was a chick from a watchdog organization who said this, "I am a woman of color and I am offended by the actions of these people." She continued on by saying that they are now demanding that no matter the background of these officer's they should all be fired.
The icing on the cake, they want them to reopen cases from the last 10 years, anything they have been associated with, to make sure that the accused/arrested was treated fairly and not at the end of a racist, sexist and homophobic police officer.
Lastly, his attorney, the gentleman whose wife was murdered in October, he is an excellent lawyer. Evidently he has known this officer for the last 10 years which is why he took the case. He also went on to say that Cohen has given his life to law enforcement. That in a previous job assignment he left because there was racism and the former employer refused to address it.
As a Man of color, I giggled at the sophmoric antics of OFF DUTY police officers....
Mayor Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong need to call Dominoes and have them deliver a life!!!!
But its San Francisco, what else would we expect?
LOL...A few years on the Streets of San Francisco will do that.
You're on the right track I believe. This is utter BS because feeeelings were hurt and PC holy ground stomped on. Newsome and his chief need to protect their jobs after all.
Yeah and this from the city that requires the homeless' bottles of urine be stored at city expense when they are "recovered" while rounding up stolen shopping carts.
They are required to store bottles and jugs of turds and urine for something like 90 days so the "owner" can have the opportunity to come claim their property.
Stop the insanity
Thats just nasty
I watched some of the videos....if anything, they can nail them for making them on paid time and using PD equipment....
I cant believe the officer didnt delete them all after the San Francisco 49er video debacle earlier this year...
That said, Gavin Newsom and Heather Fong should be forced out of positions of power.
Late 70s in San Francisco -- I don't think I ever drove by a park, early morning, where Tai Chi groups, on the greens, weren't going on.
When my father-in-law retired from a mid-sized city's police force, he was presented with a 'peace' club. It was a super-fat baseball type of billy club with bolts screwed through the middle of it.
It still hangs on the wall of the rec room where my mother-in-law lives. He died a year ago and she is in her middle 80's.
Where is the sense of humor? This makes no sense.
Political correctness means you withhold information. How can that be a good thing -- to remove information form the discourse. So instead of "two black youths escaped from prison", its "two (___) youths escaped from prison". When protected classes are the victim as in, "a homosexual youth was beaten in an alley" the information would never be lost as in "a (___) youth was beaten in an alley".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.