Offensive Videos Pit S.F. Police vs. City Hall

The leak of several offensive internal police videos has ignited a political firestorm in this liberal city, pitting rank-and-file officers against City Hall in what some are calling the biggest crisis of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s two years in office.

Eighteen police officers from a precinct in a largely black district were suspended last week after the release of behind-the-scenes videos that mock blacks and Asians and treat women as sex objects. An additional 12 officers could also be suspended.

Officers say the videos were made as a spoof to boost morale in a high-crime neighborhood, but Newsom has called them racist and sexist.

It’s the second time in six months that off-color tapes produced by would-be role models have embarrassed officials here. In July, the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers suffered a similar public-relations fumble with the disclosure of a training video that featured racial slurs and naked women.

In 2003, five Police Department supervisors were indicted for reportedly conspiring to cover up an off-duty brawl involving three rookie patrolmen. The indictments were later dropped.

The recent taped police skits have struck a particularly sensitive nerve in a city celebrated for its diversity, where the posts of district attorney, police chief and fire chief are all held by women. Newsom spent much of last week doing damage control, visiting with religious leaders and attending late-night meetings in the department’s Bayview district, where the videos were made.

Bayview residents reacted angrily to the videos. Newsom has promised widespread department reforms.

On Friday, after learning that other insensitive videos had been made public, Newsom renewed his criticism of officers who, he says, “just fail to get it.”

The newest tapes include images of a black police officer eating from a dog bowl. Previous tapes depicted a police car running over a homeless black woman, an officer dressed as a transgender person and a high-ranking captain flicking his tongue suggestively at the camera.

The videos first surfaced on an Internet website and then were released by city officials. They have since been featured on news broadcasts nationwide.

“This is terrible, this is serious stuff,” Newsom said after addressing a group of architects downtown.

“A small group of officers made a video on city time when they should have been out fighting crime. They used city resources to make a parody they insist is benign, but which at worst is racist and sexist and outrageously offensive to this community.

“You don’t make a video depicting a patrol car running over a homeless person in the middle of the street. You don’t make a tape where you put dog collars around the necks of officers, showing abuse that is reminiscent of what took place in an Iraqi prison.”

But police officers insist the mayor has overreacted. They say the videos were made in-house by consenting officers of various races, both men and women. On Friday, the highest-ranking officer facing suspension in connection with the videos held an unusual news conference near police headquarters.

Capt. Rick Bruce accused Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong of smearing his name and demanded a public apology for releasing the tapes to the public without informing him. Bruce said his image was used in the tapes without his knowledge.

Gary Delagnes, president of the 2,200-member San Francisco Police Officers Assn., said the videos should never have been made. “It’s an embarrassment to the department and the officers involved,” he said. “We’re wrong, and we have to take our medicine.”

But Delagnes said that the videos were made by officers in stressful jobs who wanted to blow off steam.

“The precinct where they work is the Iraq of the city of San Francisco,” he said. “They are outgunned and outmanned, and just a year ago one of their numbers was murdered.

“And so a bunch of officers, white, black, Asian, women and gay, got together and made a video they thought was going to be shown at their captain’s retirement dinner. It was their way of dealing with the futility of their jobs.”

On Friday, Milton Williams, head pastor at Bayview Baptist Church for 23 years, met at City Hall with other religious leaders to discuss how to handle rising anger over the videos. He said he was stumped about the sermon he would deliver Sunday.

“There is an incredible amount of anger out there,” Williams said. “Some people are surprised and outraged. But I’ve heard from people who say, ‘I’m not shocked at all. This is the kind of behavior I’ve seen for years.’ ”

At the meeting, which included priests, ministers, rabbis, Franciscan friars and Buddhist monks, one cleric said the city “cannot stomach a bunch of cops gone wild.” Another called for the officers involved to be fired.

But Williams said he was going to call for calm from the pulpit. “We shouldn’t be about pointing fingers.”