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Police and Law Enforcement News
Thursday, December 7, 2006 11:20 a.m.
The award for the most dragged out
internal affairs investigation goes to the San Francisco Police
Department.
It took a full year to complete the
inquiry into the infamous "police videos" scandal where about three
dozen San Francisco officers from various backgrounds starred in
silly bits ranging from a
Charlie's Angel's spoof to officers disregarding a gun call to
instead visit a massage parlor.
San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsom and Chief
of Police Heather Fong broke the story to the press last December
and received criticism for overreacting to what was little more that
cops being silly heads. Below are quotes from each from that press
conference:
"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."
-San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom
"This is a dark day,
an extremely dark day, in the history of the San Francisco Police
Department."
-San Francisco Police
Chief Heather Fong
Undoubtedly, San Fran IA officers were
not the reason for the delay. Mayor Gavin Newsom had promised
to launch four separate investigations by the following:
-
San Francisco Police
Department Internal Affairs Unit
-
A "Blue Ribbon
Commission"
-
The City Human Rights
Commission
-
The Commission on the
Status of Women
The verdict is in on
most of the punishments.
From
KGO San Francisco:
After a year of
thinking about it, San Francisco's police chief has decided to
come down very hard on San Francisco police officers, a lot of
them, over those now famous police produced satirical videos.
Police officers are not happy.
We are learning that 28 of the 35
officers who were charged by Chief Fong now know what their
punishments will be. Also tonight there is a strong reaction
from the head of the police union...
...Some of the officers in the
video told us, the punishments range from written reprimands to
suspensions of ten days or less.
Seven of the 35 officers face more
serious penalties before the police commission. That could
include dismissal. Nineteen of the officers are suing Chief Fong
and the city. Their lawyer spoke to us by phone from Lake Tahoe.
Waukeen McCoy: "I think the
charges she brought against my clients are ridiculous. I think
this is a continued effort on her part to retaliate against my
clients from standing up for their rights."
Gary Delagnes is president of the
Police Officers Association. He spoke publicly about the chief's
decision for the first time in this interview with ABC7.
Gary Delagnes: "What could
possibly have taken one year to get to this point? Like I said,
we've captured and tried Sadam Hussein quicker than we came to a
conclusion in this videogate."
Delagnes says the chief's
priorities are misplaced.
Gary Delagnes: "At a time when we
have a rising homicide rate, when we're dealing with all the
gang activity, when we're dealing with two dead cops in the last
year, when we're dealing with a 300 cop shortage in this
department, what are we wasting our time with this stuff for?"
The chief says she hopes the
department can now move on. But the story is far from over. The
seven cases referred to the police commission will most likely
take a long time to adjudicate. There may be appeals. And there
is still the $20 million dollar lawsuit which 19 of the officers
have filed against Chief Fong and the city.
Click here to watch the press conference and videos. They
are located on the website of San Fran Officer Andrew Cohen the
producer of the videos.
Police and Law Enforcement News
Thursday, December 7, 2006 11:20 a.m.
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