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."
Clint make a new Dirty Harry Flick? Sounds like my kinda movie.
Well whatever it was in that picture I'll assume it was either nasty, funny or both 8>)
Madness,isn't it?
And Officer Cohen was really dumb.
True. They're not really "liberal," since that implies tolerance. The irony is that allowing satirical humor like that actually helps defuse tensions in a "diverse" place like SF. If you can't poke fun at the absurdities of life in a multiculti stew, you've got a pretty grim little lefty dystopia.
IOWs, don't tell the truth whats out there on the street...butter it over and make it look nice!! Thats the way to do it!!
This is an attempt to root out retro-grade culture from the SFPD. Its a kind of liberal Maoism. Soon we will be using Mao Tse Tungs terms:
Example: We are involved in a "peoples war" against "right wing middle roaders" who betray the "revolution" of the people who rise up to overthrow the "authoritarian minority."
Look at the quotes:
Mayor Gavin Newsom: "a series of vignettes, skits, that are some of the most egregious skits I've seen."
Heather Fong and Newsom: "The content ranges from immature and vulgar to sexist, racist and homophobic," ( it was for a retirement party, DUH ?)
This is mythomaniacal language ( egregious?)designed to propagate its own legend of a lock step liberal morality couched in political correctness. This is "the liberal cultural revolution" in action.
Clearly these remarks purposefully take the video out of the context of a retirement party film. Cohen has a pristine service record, apparently. These officers are sacrifices to the minorities who make up SF, and the persecution of these officers is a way to make SF voters think that the
fight against the "counter-revolutionary middle roader"
police officers is unceasing and relentless in pursuit of
a liberal Utopia.(Slime media: How dare these officers make a comedy video while people on the streets of S.F. are dying? BARF!!) Every Utopia fails but the process will ensure Fong will be a Chief for a long time and a wallowing Mayor Newsom gets all those minority votes, not to mention free publicity.
Horowitz is a good attorney for SF, lots of grandstanding for the media, if he is on his best game. It should be interesting to watch the hearings, if they are public.They probably will be closed to the public.
This is not right. It was a problem that could have been solved by simply removing Cohen's site from the web. The situation has been seized to make political hay for the benefit of two mediocre politicians: Newsom and Fong.Now 12 officers carreer's will be ruined, with possibly up to 20 by the end of it all.How many officers will leave? A lot over the next few years. Maybe they will go on strike and Fong and Newsom can go up against the Gangs of San Francisco themselves. ( Oh I hope!)
There's plenty of employment elsewhere. It wouldn't be worth it to me. But that's me.
The mayors office made this whole problem by calling all the news outlets just before 6pm news casts telling them to get down to city hall. They have a important news conference at6 pm. Pete Wilson( not the former Governor, the Abc Newscaster) told everyone this yesterday on kgo Radio.
This really doesn't surprise me.
I remember people calling Newsom the "conservative" in the SF mayor's race. What a toilet bowl full of sludge that place is.
No sense of humor in San Francisco. Who knew.
Many liberals become easily offended and react adversarially, revealing their hidden harbor of intense guilt. Refusing to address them, they lock themselves into their personal prison by attacking others, whose actions cause their guilt to quiver in their conscience.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
They don't make Chinese (oops, I meant "Asian") cops like Charlie Chan anymore.
"They don't make Chinese (oops, I meant "Asian") cops like Charlie Chan anymore."
Heater Fong is not even Charlie Chan lite!
She will leave no stone unturned to censor the speech of her patrol officers in the SFPD. Can you imagine what the radio traffic between the dispatchers and patrols must be like.
Dispatcher: "We have one racial minority person , holding hostage, one racial minority person" [while all the oficers are wondering what the identification characteristics( race, sex) of the perpetrator and victim are]
The patrol officers will have a field day with this politically correct miasma, especially in radio communications. Fong is as good as cooked. I predict she might last for 6 months at the most. She just screwed the pooch by not standing by her officers and handling this behind the scenes by having the internet site taken down. She has just been divorced from the rank and file SFPD officers who will no longer regard her as a leader , or respect her. She violated one of the very basic principles of police force management. Do you think that SFPD officers will risk their lives at the command request of "Feather Hong?" or her sidekick, "Spavined Knewsome?"
They are not leaders from the front, they are buggerers of boys from the rear, known in some circles as REMF 's.
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