The Sodom and Gomorrah of our country has a police department that has been beset with a slew of scandals, including racist and homophobic cops
Homophobic cops in the nation’s homosexual capital? All Ian say is, sumbich, what this country isn’t coming to. And that’s just one of the reasons why I call it San Fransicko.
3,000 CASES POSSIBLY AFFECTED BY S.F. POLICE TEXTING, D.A. SAYS
San Francisco Dist. Atty. George Gascon has expanded an investigation into criminal cases that may have been compromised by racist and homophobic text messages sent by members of the police department
By Maura Dolan
Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO -- Prosecutors here are expanding an investigation into criminal cases that might have been compromised by revelations of police officers’ racist, sexist and homophobic texts, Dist. Atty. George Gascon announced Thursday.
Gascon’s probe has so far identified 3,000 criminal cases that could have been affected by perceived bias by 14 officers. Investigators in a task force he created are combing through each case to determine whether some convictions must be overturned or pending cases dismissed.
“If just one individual was wrongly imprisoned because of bias on the part of these officers — that’s one too many,” Gascon said.
He said some pending cases already have been dismissed, and prosecutors so far have alerted defense attorneys of potential problems in about 60 other cases. The office is giving priority to cases that involve people who are behind bars. About 1,400 cases involved arrests but no prosecution.
Gascon also widened the task force’s mission to include an examination of whether a culture of bias exists in the police force, which serves one of the nation’s most liberal cities. He said Thursday he was adding three retired judges, including former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, to work with the group.
The probe began after the U.S. attorney’s office filed a motion in March opposing bail for Ian Furminger, a former San Francisco police officer sentenced to 41 months in prison on various corruption-related charges. The motion, intended to prevent Furminger from obtaining bail while appealing his conviction, listed the texts.
The messages included slurs and disparaging references to African Americans and gays.
Police Chief Greg Suhr has so far recommended that six of the 14 officers who sent such texts be fired and has turned over the results of his investigation to the San Francisco Police Commission.
“We have been cooperating with the district attorney the whole time,” said Officer Grace Gatpamdan, an SFPD spokeswoman. She said some of the officers had “single incidents.”
The furor over the texts followed a series of law enforcement scandals in San Francisco in recent months. Sheriff's deputies have been accused of staging gladiator-like fights among inmates in the jail, and Suhr was suspended for five days for failing to follow department policy in helping a female friend who was a victim of domestic violence.
San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said he hopes the investigators will interview victims of discriminatory police actions instead of just reviewing documents.
“This is a systemic problem we have in San Francisco,” Adachi said.
He said African Americans are arrested and prosecuted at much higher rates than whites, adding, “This is not an isolated case of 14 officers.”
The Rev. Amos Brown, a San Francisco NAACP board member, said African Americans comprise only about 5% of the city’s population but make up 60% to 70% of those in San Francisco’s juvenile hall.
“This is a moral issue,” Brown said at a news conference with Gascon. “Everybody is guilty, whether Republican or Democrat, whether judge, probation officer or police officer.”
Gascon, a former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief, served as San Francisco police chief for about a year before his election as district attorney. Suhr succeeded him.
The cases being reviewed go back 10 years, and Gascon acknowledged that some of the alleged officer misconduct took place on his watch.
“I feel terrible,” he said.
The task force’s findings will be made public. Gascon said he hopes the panel will complete the work by the end of the year, but no deadline has been set.
Gascon noted that police misconduct has stirred distrust in cities across the country.
“As recent revelations have shown, we are not immune,” Gascon said. “The actions of a few have undermined the public faith in the system.”
4 comments:
Cynicism, Homophobia, and the Warrior mindset. The nod and wink have been going on for years and it starts in the academy and goes all the way to the top.
However, Race is not the problem. It is criminals who are black. It is a black culture that rewards offenders with street credibility for an arrest.
I applaud the use of body cameras. The truth will come out about these thugs in living color.
The old story in the academy of the ME arriving at the scene of a police shooting goes like this...
ME arrives to find several cops standing around the bullet ridden body of the suspect. The ME leans down and rolls the body over. Under the body, are five switch blade knives and a .22 pistol. The ME rolls the body back and tells the officers he has to retrieve his camera. When the ME returns, he again rolls the body over and finds one knife. The entire academy class laughs.
Was it a joke or was How to use a throw down weapon just taught to a class of cadets? Your call.
When the homophobic comments came over the text messages between cops, which gay cop told them to stop it?
Answer: None of them.
Unfortunately the cops recruit from the human race, as do all other professions (with the possible exception of politicians and pimps, which might be the same thing anyway). There will be a few idiots in any group that is large enough.
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