San Francisco Suspends Officer Over Video
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9, 2005
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(AP) 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 Delagnes, 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."
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Anyone seen this video or have found it on the web??
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