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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...