NoFuncisco California...

The city of San Francisco has suspended 20 police officers who participated in video sketches portraying cops doing everything from ogling women, to ducking emergency calls and going to a massage parlor on duty. These video sketches were created by officer Andrew Cohen, and were allegedly developed over the course of the year for viewing at a Christmas party roast for a retiring police captain. The video leaked out after it had been posted on Cohen's SFPD website.

If you haven't seen the video, go look it up. Seriously.



Police Chief Heather Fong said on Wednesday, when the suspensions were announced, that the public release of the videos marked "a dark day" for the San Francisco police department.

The skits portray officers in the predominantly black Bayview-Huntetrors Point district as unresponsive to emergency calls but eager to make drug busts. There's a scene were a male officer dressed in drag and obviously portraying a transsexual, makes a pass at an officer during booking. The skits also portray male officers as sex obsessed control freaks. Officials complain the video degrades women by showing female officers doing "Charlie's Angel's poses" and suggestive facial expressions during skits.

Turn on CNN, and you'll see an African-American activist practically foaming at the mouth in outrage over a scene showing officers indifferently driving over a black homeless man on their way to something they considered a bigger emergency.

My question is, what's the big deal?

When I think of San Francisco, I don't associate it with the word "uptight", but apparently officials in our most socially forward-thinking city, forgot what parody is.

The department's internal affairs division launched an investigation after the videos were discovered. Other city commissions, (human rights, women's rights) were also assigned to look into the matter. Press conferences were booked, and city authorities blasted Cohen, and the officers involved for their reckless, insensitive behavior.



"It is shameful, it is offensive, it is sexist, it is homophobic and it is racist. We're going to make sure that it ends, [and] it ends immediately." - Gavin Newsom, Mayor

Cohen said Fong asked him to meet with her Dec. 14th and that he will eventually have a hearing before the Police Commission. Speaking on Cohen's behalf, attorney Daniel Horowitz, defended the video claimed that the skits attempted to use edgy humor to show how police at Bayview Station were viewed in the community.

"The officers feel perceived [that] they're stereotyped," Horowitz said.

Horowitz claims that the video had been intended as a parody and that officials had overreacted to an attempt at edgy humor and "social commentary". He admitted that while the scenes could be described as "sophomoric", they were not insensitive. The real bombshell was dropped when he claimed officials slandered his client by intentionally taking the videos out of context, and drawing attention to them for their own good PR. Horowitz then stated that the SFPD should expect a lawsuit if it doesn't reconsider its decision.

"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...They could have played the video without putting their spin on it first, and let people decide for themselves, but they didn't." Horowitz said.

Cohen, who has received much acclaim from critics and fellow officers nationwide for his previous films, has also enjoyed a warm spotlight until now. The award-winning production of his 1998 film "Hearts of the City", was received well and is considered one of the better documentaries on police life in recent years. You can read about it here. In this case, Cohen claims he was making a film he hoped would be seen by others for a positive effect.



"We made this video [Hearts of the City] so that people outside the department would understand us better," Cohen said. "We didn't realize that "Hearts of The City' also helps us understand ourselves."

Okay, so the guy sets out one day to make spoofs of daily life for Bayview-Hunters Point district police officers, specifically targeting a perceived stereotype for laughs. He gets 20 other officers, including the retiring captain, to shoot scenes in and out of uniform for the video -- and ends up with a mini-movie where real cops are making fun of themselves and criminals alike.

So where did these cops go wrong? Ask the Mayor and his Police Chief.

Newsom appointed Fong, who interestingly enough, was the first Asian woman to head a major U.S. police force, in January 2004. She assumed office in the wake of the police department's "Fajitagate" scandal in which top officers were accused of covering up a street brawl over fajitas outside a bar. The fight involved a son of the former police chief. Apparently this is grounds for overwhelming department reform in San Francisco. Corruption must be rampant if the son of the Chief doesn't get charged with assault in an foodfight.

Ask behind closed doors, and you'll hear of a major rift between the Mayor's office, Fong, and the men and women of the SFPD. San Francisco has long been known as the forerunner of acceptance, cultural sensitivity, and groundbreaking legal intervention in civil rights issues. But it would seem that the rumors about fanatical political correctness within the city administration were true. If you're on the outer fringes of activist liberalism -- apparently, you should work for the City.

I wonder at times where attitudes like this come from. Sure, there is this perception that police officers should be busy busting criminals and solving murders, not making movies for their own entertainment. I can see how people would worry the SFPD officers involved, were neglecting their duties to star in their own "morale booster" video. I can even give the regular amount of slack for someone coming out to complain about insensitive viewpoints and actions like these offending some subculture in a terrible way.

Even if they're annoying, the people who come out and say these things belong in our society. The fringe is okay, and liberal ideas of cultural plurality, social reform, and sensitivity are important. Hell, remember when women couldn't vote, the mentally ill were locked in asylums, children slaved away in hard labor camps, and black people couldn't do anything without a slave owners approval?

Well, these things were stamped out by everyone here -- but it all started with one person sticking their neck out and saying it was wrong.

So with that in mind, what were the Mayor and the SFPD Chief thinking happened here? Did they interview the officers involved, and discuss the film? Did they attempt to suppress what they considered to be a potential PR snafu, and send the filmmaker to sensitivity training? Did they try to contain the problem and explain to the officers that they didn't feel the movie was appropriate? Did they decide to be the whistleblower and stick their necks out to speak out against a social injustice they feel was done?

No, they ruined the careers of 20 dedicated public servants for their own political gain.

Mayor Newsom and Chief Fong saw an opportunity to seem like reform-oriented elected representatives of the people. The people who wouldn't stand for cops infringing on the rights of homosexuals, minorities and women. The people who are hungry for corruption busting city leaders to rid them of dirty cops. The people who live in a city where its okay to say whatever you want to say, and love whomever you want to love...

...just not in parodied video-vignette form.

I'm sorry I think this is a pile of bullshit, and that these cops should have the movie played in its entirety on every network so we can see it ourselves. Then, people who don't even live in the Bay Area, can be outraged. I hope this happens, because while I believe that cultural sensitivity is important, I also know that stifling artistic vision and satirical takes on said culture, can be one of the most dangerous slippery-slopes a society can engage in.

Remember, there was this one group of people who suppressed all satirical and parody focused criticism. They did it to keep the wrong ideas from overtaking their sense of order and stability, and to further the challenging social viewpoints of their reformist leader.

These same people also gassed millions of Jews.

Terrible comparison you say? Yeah, eat me. That's exactly how a society becomes something like the Nazi state. The German people weren't all on the Hitler bandwagon of global social order, but they were indifferent to just enough reform, and accepting of just enough political change, and blind to the subtle language changes they let their leaders use . Suddenly they found themselves in a war where they were the bad guys committing genocide.

Damn San Francisco city officials are gonna turn us all into Nazi's!!

Don't you love how I do that?

Either way, they need to lighten the fuck up. That video was hilarious.