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The San Francisco Police Officers Association's leadership has been told to muzzle it after signing a letter accusing onetime Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, of being behind the nearly 40-year-old bombing at a San Francisco police station that killed a sergeant. We hear that both U.S. Justice Department reps and Police Chief Heather Fong put in calls to the union to find out just what they were doing talking out of school about an active investigation that may be ready to make a move soon in the 1970 bombing at Park Station. The word was,...

San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong's decision to retire after nearly five stable but uninspired years on the job, comes just as Mayor Gavin Newsom is facing two tough political challenges with the city's powerful police officers union: budget cuts and the need for the union's backing for his 2010 gubernatorial bid. Faced with a staggering city budget deficit, Newsom has asked the Police Officers Association to give back the 6 percent raise he agreed to in the last contract - just as he is asking other unions for givebacks. So far, the police rank and file have said no...

San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong, who rose through the ranks to become the city's first female chief nearly five years ago, will announce her retirement today on a radio program hosted by Mayor Gavin Newsom.She plans to step down in April, once she reaches her fifth anniversary as San Francisco's top cop and after she helps with the search for her successor, she said. Fong has served in the police department for more than 30 years.The announcement ends speculation about her long-rumored departure and comes as the city approaches its 100th homicide of the year.Fong told The Chronicle that...

Sarah Palin has accused presidential candidate Barack Obama of "palling around" with terrorists - referring to his acquaintance with a former member of the Weather Underground. So who were the Weather Underground? Embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, with many of the grievances of the civil-rights movement still unanswered, the US government was facing widespread protests in the late 1960s. Often those who rebelled were rich in idealism but unable or unwilling to take concrete action. On 8 October 1969, all that changed. A newly-formed group of left-wing extremists, dubbed the Weathermen, went on the rampage in a well-planned...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A man who was shot by a San Francisco police officer while fleeing to avoid a panhandling citation has died, authorities said today. The man died at 6:25 p.m. Sunday at San Francisco General Hospital, according to the medical examiner's office. His name wasn't released pending notification of his family. The shooting occurred about 3:20 p.m., after someone complained to police about a panhandler on the median strip of Van Ness Avenue at Greenwich. An officer responded and went onto the median to cite the man, who was uncooperative, said police Sgt. Steve Mannina. When the officer...

A San Francisco police officer who has been the target of several complaints from people who say he used excessive force was among five law enforcement officers sued Thursday by a medical student, who says he was told to "stop acting like such a girl" and zapped with a stun gun during a North Beach sweep. Mehrdad Alemozaffar, 27, who is to begin a medical residency at Harvard University this fall, said Officer Jesse Serna was among the police officers and sheriff's deputies who tackled him to the ground near Broadway and Montgomery Street at about 2 a.m. Dec. 17....

Lisa Frazer would like to be known as a good cop. Period. By all accounts, Frazer is a model officer. She's well liked by her peers. People on her beat know her and smile when they see her coming. Her uniform is impeccable, from the shiny and scuff-free star on her chest to the small but highly polished boots on her feet. She's small but tough. She teaches martial arts and carries a very large handgun on her hip. Fellow cops have seen her fight, and they say she's more than ready to wade into battle when necessary. All things...

If ever there was a real-life, rags-to-riches fairy tale, Theresa Sparks' story is it. Only, this being San Francisco, Cinderella used to be a man and went from riches (traveling in a corporate jet) to rags (driving a taxi and sleeping on friends' couches) to prominence again by becoming a pioneering transgender activist and the chief executive officer of a multimillion-dollar sex-toy company. It's not the way Sparks, 58, ever thought her life would turn out. As she says in her profile on an Internet dating site, she's "just another San Francisco trans-woman with the uncanny ability to get myself...

Former City Attorney Louise Renne resigned from San Francisco's Police Commission today after fellow commissioner Theresa Sparks was elected to succeed her as president of the panel. Renne and Mayor Gavin Newsom were supporting commissioner Joe Marshall for the post, which carries the power to influence the agenda of the Police Department governing board. Sparks, the chief executive officer of Good Vibrations, a San Francisco sex-toy retailer, . . .

The San Francisco Police Department needs broad reforms to avoid racial profiling or the perception of it, a national expert reported to Mayor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday. Newsom strongly embraced the recommendations of Lorie Fridell, a nationally-recognized criminologist he hired last December after The Chronicle reported that San Francisco arrests blacks at a higher rate than any other major city in the state. Fridell, an expert on racial profiling who is an associate professor at the University of South Florida, said "San Francisco needs to implement reforms in this realm on its own initiative to reduce the risk of outside...

D.A. calls alleged attack cowardly -- 2 S.F. men expected to surrender today - Two 19-year-old San Francisco men are expected to surrender today to face charges in the beatings of members of a Yale singing group in what prosecutors called "a group attack on innocent victims." Richard Aicardi and Brian Dwyer were charged Monday with felony assault and battery in the incident that began with a dispute at a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco honoring the a cappella group the Baker's Dozen. The charges were filed after a two-month police investigation. Prosecutors have been reviewing police findings...

A tracking system to identify San Francisco police officers who resort repeatedly to force or exhibit other problematic behavior won Police Commission approval Wednesday -- four years after critics first urged its adoption. The planned computerized system will track use of force, citizen complaints, internal department complaints, officer-involved shootings whether anyone is hit or not, legal claims and lawsuits against officers, on-duty accidents and vehicle pursuits. Problem officers flagged by the system could be subject to counseling or retraining. Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had pushed for adoption of the system by the end of 2006 after a Chronicle series on...

Eric Hunt of N.J. allegedly assaulted author, Nobel winner - SAN FRANCISCO -- Police have secured an arrest warrant for the man accused of attacking renowned Holocaust author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel in San Francisco earlier this month. Eric Hunt, 22, of Sussex County, N.J., allegedly tried to force Wiesel out of an elevator and into a hotel room at the Argent Hotel on Feb. 1. Wiesel, 78, was not hurt in the assault, but decided to immediately leave San Francisco and the interfaith conference he was in town for. A $500,000 arrest warrant was issued for...

Four former militants appeared in shackles at a raucous court hearing today at San Francisco's Hall of Justice on charges that three of them murdered a San Francisco police officer in 1971 and the fourth took part in a larger conspiracy to target police. Many in the courtroom applauded as the alleged onetime members of the Black Liberation Army entered, triggering an immediate order by Superior Court Judge Donna Alyson Little to clear the court. As the defendants' attorneys objected to Little's order, the crowd -- now outside the courtroom -- chanted, "No justice, no peace.'' Eventually, Little relented and...

The investigation of the alleged New Year's attack on Yale's Baker's Dozen singing club could finally be headed to prosecutors -- possibly by next week, according to law enforcement sources. At least that was the word late Tuesday as the event that became a national spectacle was approaching its one-month anniversary. Those same sources, however, said they're not sure if what allegedly started as taunting over the singers' rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" inside a Richmond District home and later spilled out onto the street has the makings of a felony assault case. Attorney Whitney Leigh, who was hired by...

As a joke, the two 19-year-olds billed their New Year's Eve party in an Internet invitation to friends as Night of Mayhem. Later, of course, that didn't seem so funny. The evening in a three-story Edwardian home in San Francisco's Richmond District began as a gathering of college kids who had graduated from one of the city's oldest private high schools, St. Ignatius College Preparatory. Guests of honor were members of the Baker's Dozen, an all-male a cappella group from Yale College that was in the city on a tour. The night ended with one member of the Baker's Dozen...

San Francisco police investigators will travel east this weekend to interview the Yale student who suffered a broken jaw in the alleged assault on members of the Baker's Dozen singing group over New Year's, according to the student's family and his civil attorneys. The case -- which sparked outrage on both coasts -- began with a dispute at a Richmond District party and ended with members of the singing group being beaten and kicked in the street. A total of ten members have told police they were assaulted, and at least two suffered serious injury. The most seriously injured member...

new insight into how San Francisco police handled the investigation into a New Year's attack on a Yale University choir. Many are saying it was mishandled. Now the story is getting coverage around the country and the world. We're doing a running tally -- it's been 10 days and 17 hours since police responded to the attack on the Yale students, and they still haven't interviewed the victims. This case is getting city officials the kind of attention they do not want, around the world. Since the I-Team broke the story of the New Year's attack on the Yale singing...

- KGO - Members of a renowned choral group from Yale University were attacked outside a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco, sending several of them to the hospital. Now the police department is coming under fire for its handling of the case. This does not look good for the city. Yale sends its popular singing group, The Baker's Dozen, on a holiday concert tour. And San Francisco sends the young men away bloody, bruised, and several of them seriously injured. Laura Aziz sent her son, Sharyar, off on a concert tour with one of Yale University's singing groups...

I've been shot. Three times, maybe four. It's hard to know for sure when your heart's thundering out of your chest, your hands are sweaty and your head is filled with all the rest of the blood in your body. That first time, I thought I was paying attention -- attuned to details just as I'm trained to be. Focused, definitely focused. I noticed it was snowing, and that the house looked a little rickety. But when the old man came out of the door with a shotgun and raised it up, I froze. What? This can't be real. It...

Fong may fire or suspend Bayview police for tapes she views as racist, sexist - Seven San Francisco police officers face possible firing for their roles in producing video skits last year that Mayor Gavin Newsom and Chief Heather Fong denounced as racist and sexist, department officials said Thursday. Twenty-eight other officers could be suspended for a maximum of 10 days apiece if found guilty of misconduct charges, police said. The video skits, some of which Newsom and Fong made public last December, were created for the Bayview Station's 2005 Christmas party. One skit depicted an officer running over a...

A much needed shot of reality !! Give a listen to the press conference (circa 7/28/06?)

Just wondering if anyone else saw this...I got this in an email from my pop who is a retired NYC cop... THIS is a Police Chief Background: San Francisco Police Officer Nick Birco was killed July 26, 2006 when his police car was struck by a stolen van occupied by suspects who had just comitted an armed robbery and were being pursued by SFPD units. This video was of a press conference given by a member of the SFPD brass. This demonstrates how administrators should act. http://mfile.akamai.com/12948/wmv/vod.ibsys.com/2006/0728/9591734.300k.asx

A 17-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department was arrested Monday on 40 felony counts of misusing confidential computer databases, police said. The district attorney charged Sgt. Andre Fontenot with accessing a computer network to wrongfully control data and using data from a computer system or network without permission. The 40 counts include two counts each for 20 victims whose information Fontenot allegedly accessed through databases, according to the district attorney's office. "In San Francisco, if you violate the public trust, whether you wear a tie or a badge, you will be vigorously prosecuted," District Attorney Kamala Harris said....

SAN FRANCISCO -- Eighteen police officers who were suspended after making a video that parodied life on the force sued the city Thursday, claiming they were victims of racial bias because they were disciplined while four Asian-American officers were not. The plaintiffs include male and female officers who are black, Hispanic and white, said their attorney, Waukeen McCoy. The four officers who took part in the video but were not suspended are of Chinese descent, as is Police Chief Heather Fong, who also was named as a defendant, according to McCoy. "They weren't disciplined at all," McCoy said. "There were...

A San Francisco police officer was killed early today near McLaren Park when his patrol car was struck by a vanload of robbery suspects being chased by other officers, authorities said. The 39-year-old officer, a five-year department veteran whose name wasn't immediately released, was struck at about 1 a.m. at Cambridge and Felton streets, San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong said. The impact of the crash caused the officer's patrol car to spin 360 degrees, hit a curb and fall onto its side, Fong said at a news conference. Other officers arrived and began adminstering CPR. He was taken to...

The recent murder of Allen Ngai Leung, a famous Chinese-American community leader in San Francisco's Chinatown, has exposed a political tension that has silenced many of Chinatown's leaders who favor Taiwan and are against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Leung was killed at the scene by a masked gunman disguised as a robber, who fired four shots into Leung after breaking into his business, Wonkow International Enterprises, located at the intersection of Jackson Street and Kearny Street on the afternoon of February 27. The police and the majority of the Chinese-American community leaders in Chinatown have largely been keeping silent...

A San Francisco police inspector honored by an international law enforcement group as a hero for her handling of a 2004 shootout with an armed suspect is among six officers now facing charges of violating department policy in the confrontation. Inspector Sylvia Morrow of the special investigations unit, a 16-year veteran of the department, was praised last year by the International Association of Women Police for her valor in the incident June 29, 2004, that ended in the death of Gustavus Rugley. Rugley, 21, was shot and killed by police at the Mission Street overpass of Alemany Boulevard. He had...

Officer seeks pay, edict that chief must follow due process. The officer at the center of the recent "Cops Gone Wild" video controversy filed a lawsuit Thursday against the San Francisco Police Department, saying he had been unlawfully suspended without pay. Officer Andrew Cohen, an amateur filmmaker whose video skits were decried as sexist and racist by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong, is seeking back pay for the week he was suspended and a declaration from the court that the chief must follow due process. Cohen, 39, a 10-year police veteran, made the videos and put them...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom described in more detail Sunday some still-undisclosed video skits made by San Francisco police officers, including a fake ad Newsom said recommends using "Bayview-Bismol" "as needed to deal with screaming black males.'' Another skit shows a uniformed officer driving through the Potrero Hill area, home to many black residents, saying the people are ignorant and will die young, according to Newsom. The amateur videos first emerged in early December, and Police Chief Heather Fong temporarily suspended 24 officers allegedly involved in their making. The content of the publicly undisclosed videos Newsom described in a talk...

San Francisco police overtime pay is soaring this fiscal year as officers work longer hours to combat a rising tide of slayings, according to payroll records tracked by the city controller's office. With the homicide rate at its highest level in years, especially in gang and drug plagued neighborhoods such as Hunters Point and the Western Addition, the Police Department spent $7.4 million on overtime between July and November, eating through much of its $10 million overtime budget that is supposed to last until June. Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda said the department is on track to spend more than $17...

San Francisco Police officers discovered a homicide victim in San Francisco today even as a call came in reporting the crime. According to one officer, a group of officers were passing by a liquor store in the 300 block of Eddy Street at about 1:40 a.m. when they saw a person in the doorway of a liquor store, possibly lying prone. The officers went to investigate the scene, at which time a call came over the radio reporting a shooting at the same location, according to police. The victim had been shot, the officers reported, and was taken to San...

With the 24 officers who were suspended for their involvement in controversial videos apparently made on Police Department time now back on the job, the head of the San Francisco police union said Friday that Mayor Gavin Newsom was to blame for hyping the so-called scandal. "Initially, we all looked at the video, and we all had varying degrees of reaction," said Police Officers Association head Gary Delagnes. "The mayor obviously thought it was an egregious breach of trust, whatever. But in retrospect, everyone was jumping the gun. I believe the mayor was initially very much offended, but I didn't...

Police chief lifts suspensions -- disciplinary action still possible. All 24 San Francisco police officers suspended for their roles in a video production that city leaders called highly offensive have been reinstated, including the officer who produced the skits, officials said Thursday. Although the officers have returned to work, they still could face disciplinary action for the video scandal, said Police Chief Heather Fong. "It will be premature to speculate on what will happen," Fong said. "There is an active administrative investigation that continues in spite of the officers being returned to duty." Fong, who along with Mayor Gavin Newsom...

SAN FRANCISCO - Mayor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday defended his handling of a police video that showed a white officer driving over a black homeless woman and poked fun at racial stereotypes, amid criticism that he was hasty in condemning the clips. Newsom rejected arguments that the tapes were never meant to be shown publicly and simply contained in-house police jokes, saying he didn't "think it was fun and games" to laugh at ethnic stereotypes. "You can't just turn a blind eye to the insensitivity in these videos," an animated Newsom said Wednesday. Twenty-four officers from the Bayview station were...

A funny thing happened over the weekend to the big "Cops Gone Wild" video scandal in San Francisco -- it started getting very quiet. Apparently, Mayor Gavin Newsom and his handlers realized that while the videos were bad, they didn't quite prove -- at least in the public's mind -- Newsom's charge that they were evidence of a "deep-seated" culture of sexism, racism and homophobia running through the department. By Sunday, the message was going out that Newsom -- having made his point and formed a "blue-ribbon" commission to look into the department's culture -- was now ready to get...

Eight San Francisco police officers -- suspended without pay as officials investigate their alleged role in a video scandal -- were given administrative hearings Monday that likely mean they can return to duty by week's end, authorities said. The eight Bayview Station officers apparently had either minor roles or no knowledge that their images would be spliced into the videos that were denounced last week as racist, sexist and homophobic by Police Chief Heather Fong and Mayor Gavin Newsom. At the center of the internal police investigation is officer Andrew Cohen, the producer of the 28-minute video, intended for the...

Classic example of why O'Reilly is no Conservative. Just saw O'Reilly agreeing with Michela Alioto that cops were out of hand. Sexist, Racist AND HOMOPHOBIC.

What a small world San Francisco is, after all. Turns out that Petra DeJesus, one of two Board of Supervisors nominees to the city's Police Commission, is the older sister of Luis DeJesus -- one of the many officers featured in the Cops Gone Wild videos that rocked the city this past week. Luis DeJesus, a plainclothes cop assigned to the Bayview, appears in a skit in which several undercover officers making a bust draw their guns on a guy carrying one measly rock of cocaine. Now, DeJesus is among the officers being called on the carpet for their part...

Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to call an "urgent'' press conference to disclose what he and other top city officials portray as racist and sexist videos produced by San Francisco police officers and to warn that officers involved -- now numbering 24 -- would be suspended is destined to go down as a defining moment of his first term in office. It also was one that his advisers and observers with experience in the art of political and image damage control say was almost forced upon him by circumstances. On Tuesday evening, Police Chief Heather Fong notified a mayoral aide that...

When Mayor Gavin Newsom last week released police-produced videos he assailed as offensive, he neglected to mention one thing: It was just the latest in a long string of scandals in the San Francisco Police Department. For decades, the department has been buffeted by controversies and furors. Mayors have wrung their hands and said something must be done. Sometimes San Franciscans have passed ballot measures aimed at toughening police discipline. Through it all, though, the 2,200-member department has remained a tradition-bound organization where major policies are influenced greatly by the Police Officers Association, and where personal relationships, family connections and...

The San Francisco police videotape farce The rest of the country is accustomed to regarding San Francisco as a nuthouse (apologies to Rick Moran), so the supposedly scandalous prank videotape produced by Officer Andrew Cohen, and the reaction thereto by the city’s Mayor and Police Chief have raised few eyebrows nationally. However, this may be one instance in which the nutjobs who run the city have outpaced the nutjobs who vote them into office. Debra Saunders, the sensible columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle has put her finger on the real issue: IF ANYONE should be suspended because of the...

SAN FRANCISCO - Two officers under investigation for allegedly participating in video parodies of police life that were branded as racist, sexist and homophobic struck back at city officials Friday, saying the mayor and police chief have mishandled the controversy. Capt. Rick Bruce, who appeared in one of the video clips, criticized Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong's decision to publicly air the video this week. Bruce, who denied any involvement with the making of the video, said the move has unfairly damaged his reputation. "As a result of the past two days, members of the public now...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The highest-ranking San Francisco police officer facing suspension in connection with video skits that city officials have labeled sexist and racist accused Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong of smearing his name and demanded a public apology. Capt. Rick Bruce, 49, has been on leave from the Bayview station for the past four months for reasons unrelated to the videos. One of the skits shows several people, including other officers, a homeless woman and a transgender person, rolling their tongues suggestively and saying, "Oh, captain." The video shows Bruce flicking his tongue in separate shots...

{This is a follow-up to a string posted yesterday about Officer Andrew Cohen, the San Francisco policeman who has been suspended for making allegedly racist videos. There is more to this story than meets the eye, to say the least.)In other San Francisco news: For those not in the area, the San Franciso media is in a frenzy over a concocted scandal about a series of satirical videos made by a SF policeman as part of a morale-boosting program. The videos are described as being "racist," "offensive to women," "insensitive" and so on, but it's all a bunch of LLLies....

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...

San Francisco -- One police officer was suspended and others faced discipline after making videos that used racist, sexist and homophobic stereotypes, officials said Wednesday. About 20 officers participated in creating or performing in the videos, intended as a spoof of life on the force, according to Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong. "The content ranges from immature and vulgar to sexist, racist and homophobic," the two said in a joint statement.

IF ANYONE should be suspended because of the brouhaha surrounding videos shot by members of the San Francisco Police Department, it is Chief Heather Fong. Her job is to run a solid department that fights crime, which means she has to punish rogue officers who hurt law-abiding citizens, but also stand up for street cops who endure a lot of abuse as they strive to make this city a safe place. Instead, she showed up with Mayor Gavin Newsom for a press conference Wednesday and supported the mayor's call for as many as four whole investigations -- by the SFPD,...

(CBS 5) SAN FRANCISCO A parody video that features uniformed and plainclothes San Francisco police officers and racist and sexist stereotypes has led to the suspension of at least 20 police officers. In a press conference Wednesday evening with Police Chief Heather Fong, Mayor Gavin Newsom described the video as a series of skits showing situations demeaning to Asians, African-Americans, homosexuals and transsexuals. Police Chief Heather Fong called the videos “egregious, shameful and despicable.” Police officer Andrew Cohen, who produced the video vignettes and was among those suspended, told CBS 5 the video was made for the Bayview police station's...

It seems the Fire Department isn't the only public safety agency in San Francisco dealing with an alcohol problem. The cops searched their own tactical unit headquarters a couple of weeks back and came away with some rather intoxicating evidence. Working off a phone tip, internal affairs sent a team down to check the tac squad's operations center in Building 606 at the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard -- a remote building also used by the bomb squad, the canine unit and other special operations. Just as the caller indicated, sources tell us, there was a padlocked fridge in a...