An estimated 1,000 criminal cases will be reviewed, following revelations that San Francisco police officers regularly shared racist and homophobic views in text messages, according to an announcement today by San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi.
Mr. Adachi today also released a 10-point plan to increase police transparency and safeguard citizens against racial bias.
Adachi said he will work with San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón to review criminal cases over the past 10 years that may have been tainted by former sergeant Ian Furminger and four current officers, identified in the press as Michael Robison, Noel Schwab, Rain Daugherty and Michael Celis. The officers sent epithet-laden text messages denigrating blacks, gays, Filipinos and Mexicans. The texts revealed in a court filing by prosecutors in Furminger’s federal corruption case. Furminger was convicted in December of robbing drug suspects.
“The messages make clear the utter contempt these officers had for the people they were sworn to protect. You can’t simply set aside this kind of extreme bias when you go to work. It affected who they chose to detain, search and arrest. It affected which witnesses or crime victims they chose to believe,” Adachi said.
The Public Defender’s Racial Justice Committee today also released a 10-point plan for police reform. Its key recommendations include increased training on implicit bias; an annual review for supervising officers that screens for racial bias, excessive force, unlawful search and false reports; and an increased effort to assign positions in black and brown communities to officers who live in the neighborhoods.
The Racial Justice Committee was formed in 2013. It partners with the University of Pennsylvania’s Quattone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice to track and remedy racial disparities in San Francisco’s criminal justice system.
Co-chairs Christopher Hite and Rebecca Young said the committee worked on the 10-point plan over the past year. Committee members hope the document will serve as a starting point for the adaptation of meaningful reforms.
San Francisco youth who have faced police bias firsthand also spoke at today’s press conference. Nico Bremond, a USF graduate and youth mentor in the Western Addition, described calling police for help after his apartment was robbed, only to be accused of selling drugs. Bremond, who is Latino and African-American, said he regularly feels police regard him suspiciously when he is living a lawful life.
Former San Francisco Youth Commissioner De’Anthony Jones, who is African-American, described an incident in which he ended a police encounter by offering to shake the officer’s hand. The officer refused, he said. Reading the text messages “hurt me to my soul,” the Sacramento State University graduate said.
“We need to attract more young men and women of color to the police department, but the kind of hatred displayed in these text messages makes that mission difficult,” he said.
Racial Justice Committee Plan for Police Reform
- Officers must have a minimum 24 hours of training on implicit bias and its effects, including perspectives of people of color unlawfully detained while walking or driving. Classes must include the impact of implicit bias on officer decision-making in the field. Additionally, officers must participate in periodic cultural competency training and education throughout their career.
- All Field Training Officers’ performance must be reviewed annually for any documented history of racial bias, excessive force, unlawful search and seizure and false reports, to determine if they are fit to train other officers.
- The Police Department must make every effort to assign positions in black and brown communities to those officers who live in the communities they are patrolling. The City should provide financial incentives to officers who choose to live in the communities they are policing.
- All officers, including plainclothes, shall be equipped with body cameras, which must be on and operating while the officer is on duty. A willful failure to turn on the equipment shall subject the officer to disciplinary action. Police officer contact with civilians which is not recorded may be deemed unreasonable by the courts and/or the Office of Citizen Complaints.
- Whenever a shooting of a civilian by a police officer occurs, an independent investigation shall be conducted by an agency outside the SF Police Department and the SF District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutions of officer-involved shootings shall proceed by way of complaint rather than by grand jury indictment. The Police Department must maintain “use of force” logs to document each instance in which a police officer draws and discharges a firearm whether or not it results in injury. These logs must be made publicly accessible on a reasonable basis, not less than quarterly.
- A youth representative shall be appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission.
- Officers shall not detain, search or arrest children at school in the absence of an imminent threat of danger. In the absence of such a threat, the officer’s conduct may be deemed unreasonable by the courts and/or the Office of Citizen Complaints.
- Officers shall not detain, search or arrest children under 16 in the absence of an imminent threat of danger without having a parent or guardian present. Where such threat has not been established, the officer’s actions may be deemed unreasonable by the courts and/or the Office of Citizen Complaints.
- Officers who encounter individuals exhibiting mental health issues, or in psychiatric crisis, (unless there is an imminent threat of danger) must contact a supervisor or a member of the Department’s Crisis Intervention Unit before using deadly force or force that may result in serious injury.
- SFPD will agree to provide statistics in the form of quarterly reports to the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors on:
- The number of traffic stops, detentions and stop and frisks of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Caucasians;
- Traffic/stops, detentions and stop and frisks of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Caucasians which did not result in a citation or arrest;
- Arrests for resisting arrest, or threatening an executive officer (PC 69) and battery on a police officer (PC 243(c)) for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and Caucasians.
The report of each incident shall include the date of police-citizen contact, the ethnicity of the arrestee and the officer(s), the location of the police contact, whether the arrest resulted in the filing of a traffic or criminal complaint and if so, charges alleged by the officer.
racial justice, social justice, food justice, climate justice…….are terms that have no agreed definition.
for conseratives the equivalent would be gun justice, taxpayer justice, American justice ….. the list goes on. making up politically correct sounding terms then justifying arguments based on ones personally ammended copy of the dictionary is out of bounds. It is like trying to win a game by personally readjusting the goal line as your own team tries to score.
Body cameras on undercover officers will make their jobs more difficult and dangerous if the cameras are detected. A really bad idea.
Is the Vanguard’s motto ‘a racism post per day will keep the commenters in play’?
LadyNewkBahm likes this.
“ It is like trying to win a game by personally readjusting the goal line as your own team tries to score.”
It seems to me that this is one area in which all law abiding Americans should be on the same team. It is in everyone’s best interest for the laws to be equally enforced regardless of personal characteristics such as race, religion, sexual preference. I can see the point of critiques of the accusation of racism or gender bias when there is no “smoking gun” as one poster has phrased it on another thread. Here we have not only a smoking gun but an entire arsenal of avowed hatred toward certain segments of the population, written in their own words, and some are still trying to deflect, minimize and deny this reality.
I find this especially ironic in view of the fact that some of these same posters were calling for the removal of the UCD student from her representative position for the much less serious infraction of celebrating a perceived victory against what she perceives as an oppressive state, namely Israel, not Jews as individuals. Nor did she have any specific power over any individual or group of individuals. However, her actions were judged by some to be “racist” and worthy of dismissal while the police get a pass for much more blatant and dangerous biases.
To Tia Will: I don’t understand why you would choose to generalize about a “group” of commenters by conflating different commenters posts to weave together a conclusion posters who were calling for the removal of Fayyez somehow have no problem with racism by police.
I will speak only for myself – I do not try to speak for anyone else. I hoped the ASUCD would remove Fayyez as a student representative because I do not believe she is representing students by making the comments that she did – essentially claiming a terrorist organization and a particular religion now rule UCD and hoping for the downfall of a country’s gov’t she personally despises. How is that representing the interests of student affairs on campus, the mission of an ASUCD representative?
As for the San Francisco police officers who exchanged emails laced with racist epithets, a completely different issue altogether, there were exactly five police officers involved, one of whom underwent prosecution for federal corruption. From CBS San Francisco: “Furminger was sentenced to 41 months in prison for corruption in a San Francisco Federal Court on Monday after being convicted in December of four charges related to a scheme to steal money and property seized during searches and arrests in 2009.” So clearly one of these men was a dirty cop and is going to prison. The other 4 will be fired for racial epithets. That does not make the entire San Francisco police force racist – which would be “guilt by association”, nor does it mean all policemen are racist.
Anon
“That does not make the entire San Francisco police force racist – which would be “guilt by association”, nor does it mean all policemen are racist.”
This is a correct statement. However, I do not believe that it in any way addresses the fact that a number of posters here have claimed a “de minims” status for racism in this country. I do not believe that this stance is accurate any more than it would be accurate to say that everyone who believes they have been racially targeted are accurate. If my comment does not apply to you, fair enough, but then why the need to debunk what I see as a fairly bland comment on my part ?
Tia, I believe you’re a day late and a dollar short. I believe I was one of the first to bring up this injustice, and said there should be swift action and to “bring down the hammer”. Other posters agreed.
Given this fact, there is no irony, and you mis-characterize what Ms. Fayyaz and her group espoused. Ms. Fayyaz, a member of the UCD student senate, posted on Facebook that “Israel will fall insha’Allah.” [God willing.]
She also posted this: “Hamas & Sharia law have taken over UC Davis.” Hamas is a well-known terrorist organization, and sharia law is known for giving women 3rd class status. I’m not sure why you want to diminish her comments, unless it is tied towards your feelings towards Israel.
BTW, God bless Bibi.
“However, her actions were judged by some to be “racist” and worthy of dismissal while the police get a pass for much more blatant and dangerous biases.”
ma’am identifying yourself with hamas and saying you don’t hate jews is like identifying with the nazis and saying you don’t hate jews. or identifying with the klan and saying you don’t hate blacks.
theres an obvious proplem over at UCD. thats reality.
Good points LNB.
“theres an obvious proplem over at UCD. thats reality.”
And yet you seem to see no problem with the obvious “reality” of hatred as expressed in the emails from the SFPD. Who do you perceive as having the ability to do more harm, a UCD student armed with her facebook page, or the officers of the SFPD with their clubs, guns, and license to detain and arrest at will ? I know who I would fear more. Oh….no…wait… I am a senior, white, female, whose main ongoing crime is occasional jaywalking….. I have nothing to fear from either so I guess everything is ok on “my team” and I shouldn’t concern myself.
“And yet you seem to see no problem with the obvious “reality” of hatred as expressed in the emails from the SFPD.”
Where in LNB do you see anything that she said that would indicated any such thing? The problem here is that the Vanguard is gleaning every racist incident it can find to prove a thesis that racism is rampant in all police departments, even if only “subtle”, i.e. racism exists in every encounter between a white police officer and a person of ethnicity. Yet AG Eric Holder could find no such thing in the encounter between Wilson and Brown, no matter how hard he tried. Instead he conceded Ferguson is more about revenue enhancement than anything, but saved his proverbial “butt” by insisting racism was a result of “disparate impact”, which was laughable. And what was the result of Holder’s very biased report? After it came out, two white officers were shot…
Anon, that’s the Vanguard post of the month. Very well stated and so true.
“the Vanguard is gleaning every racist incident it can find to prove a thesis that racism is rampant in all police departments, even if only “subtle”, i.e. racism exists in every encounter between a white police officer and a person of ethnicity “
That is the post of the month only if you favor hyperbole over all else. When has the Vanguard ever suggested that “racism is rampant in all police departments” ? Direct quotes please.
“two white officers were shot”
It seems clear to me that your own post is clear evidence of the existence of racism. It is the intent that is the determinant of whether an act is racist or not. The color of the skin of the individual is not the point. It is the intent of the aggressor. Of course, white officers being targeted because their skin is white is racist. Of course the same is true when blacks are targeted because their skin is black.
My point was that “racism” is “racism” whether is is anti Semitism, or whether it is directed against blacks and Hispanics. However, some posters here seem to only want to acknowledge the former while steadfastly denying the latter.
“The problem here is that the Vanguard is gleaning every racist incident it can find to prove a thesis that racism is rampant in all police departments, even if only “subtle”, i.e. racism exists in every encounter between a white police officer and a person of ethnicity. ”
this was a press release from adachi’s office, the vanguard just reprinted it.
And why did the Vanguard choose this story over the many hundreds of stories it could have chosen?
The shooter in Ferguson was only defending himself against an unidentified fellow protester when he only happened to hit the two officers by accident from 100 yards away according to a preacher that visited him in the jail. Not so smear his character but he had an outstanding felony warrant for his arrest for a property crime because he did not report to his probation officer.
Maybe the cops and the student just need some sensitivity training or maybe 24 hours of training on implicit bias and its effects. Personally I do not fear either the cops or the student. I am more disappointed and disgusted by both.
I believe I briefly mentioned this when this story broke, but I’ll expand a bit here.
1. There should be a thorough review of all SFPD texts and emails to detect any other racist language. There should be a huge email trail, I’m not sure how far texts can be searched. Root out all bad apples. Bring down the hammer. This should include officers of every ethnicity. Can we go back 5 years?
2. SFPD years ago was dragging its heels in completing an officer software tracking system (I forget the exact term), which would track who made x number of arrests, where they were, who was arrested, who was disciplined, etc.
What is the status of this system? It was seen by some as the Police Officer’s Association dragging it’s feet so that officer’s weren’t held accountable for their actions. Check these numbers against those that sent the offending messages.
3. This will get dicey as SFPD did have a spoof video several years ago that blew up with political correctness. One part of the video, for example, had an African American officer pretending to eat from a dog bowl, and this was seen as offensive. However, this officer had taken the nickname “Dawg”, and was part of the team who came up with this video creation. But if we’re going to be legit, if a black officer uses racist language, he / she should be fired, too.
4. We need to define and enforce the racist terms towards white citizens which will result in being fired.
Barack,
The simple answer is that the coverage of the cannery took a lot of time and I received a press release from the San Francisco public defenders office, it was a story that tracked with other coverage that we had and so it was a quick way to post something. Do I agree with them? Yes. But, this was not just the Vanguard’s oh Pinyan, it was the opinion of Jeff Adachi, the San Francisco public defender.
Interesting. The Thought Police are persecuting the real police.
But the Thought Police are a much greater threat to civil rights and civil liberties than are the real police. The existence and power of the Thought Police are manifestations of lost perspective for the ingredients to a truly free society, and an indication of the impending decline of that society.
Read A Righteous Mind and it helps to understand what is happening. Greater success in eliminating life struggles causes a society to lose perspective for the ingredients of their good life, and then causes them to focus on the absurd and demand change that unravels the previous progress made.
For example, when we look at true racial progress from a pre and post-civil rights era, there is really no comparison. The percentage of truly racist people has fallen to a de minimis statistic. We have a two-term black President, etc., etc., etc….
We generate many fewer true victims of civil rights abuses, but we also generate more struggle-ignorant egalitarians afflicted with a projected victim mentality. And so there is a growing concentration of attention on a shrinking number of true social justice causes. And eventually it just become absurd.
But the egalitarian obsession is so strong that the absurd eventually become mainstreamed.
And then we truly start to break down… and we become polarized. We become polarized because a working democracy cannot survive the indoctrination of the absurd. And those that know this will fight to prevent it. And those that don’t understand it will fight to maintain their obsession.
Kind of a weird comment given the facts here:
“The officers sent epithet-laden text messages denigrating blacks, gays, Filipinos and Mexicans. The texts revealed in a court filing by prosecutors in Furminger’s federal corruption case. Furminger was convicted in December of robbing drug suspects.”
How is this an example of the thought police persecuting real police?
Words are communication of thoughts and not actions. When we persecute words and thoughts void of evidence of actions we are heading down a very slippery slope.
But what happened here is something different. What happened was that there was a prosecution for a corruption scandal, language was discovered that was disturbing, and now the DA and PD are cooperating to determine if it impacted the outcome of any case. That seems like a prudent course of action.
So let me understand… you are not supportive of punishment for the officers guilty of using the disturbing words in their text messages if there is no other material evidence of wrong doing?
I have heard some bad racial, gender and other group denigrating stuff from people that are unlikely to ever knowingly break the law. Ignorance is not a prosecutable offense don’t you agree?
I don’t support additional legal punishment for making stupid comments. The only question is whether they allowed that bad judgment to impact their work.
I think we should get a large group of individuals to go into Starbucks and engage barristas in conversations about racism, as per the CEO’s request. Video tape it, and upload them to youtube. I hope Project Veritas has already thought of this.
I agree with you here. So let’s just make sure people are not punished for stupid comments. Otherwise you and me would be locked up for life!
Frankly
“we also generate more struggle-ignorant egalitarians afflicted with a projected victim mentality”
I would like to see any factual evidence you have to back up your claim that such a group as “struggle ignorant egalitarians afflicted with a projected victim mentality” even exists, let alone that we are “generating more of them”.
I think that an interesting although not scientific exercise in reality checking might be to cross reference the racist and homophobic texts with the many available postings of SF police treating people in violent and inhumane fashion and see if there is a correspondence. If these types of behaviors are actually recorded that would seem to serve as evidence that their words are a reflection of their true values and that they are incorporating these values of hate and lack of respect into their duties. What say you Frankly ? Would you consider videotaped abuse enough evidence in combination with racist language, or would you merely make up another reason for what is right in front of you rather than concede racist behavior ?
Tia–outstanding suggestion, this idea was starting to form in my head, but you beat me to it!
This should actually be do-able, and could, if done with balanced statistical rigor, generate very meaningful conclusions (is there or is there not a correspondence?)
I agree that e-mail accounts for the job should be auditable; but private e-mail accounts should definitely not be auditable for any reason (with exceptions for criminal indictment investigation). So keep you professional job-sponsored e-mail account professional, please avoid off-color jokes or comments relating to any delicate political topic.
“The problem here is that the Vanguard is gleaning every racist incident it can find to prove a thesis that racism is rampant in all police departments, even if only “subtle”, i.e. racism exists in every encounter between a white police officer and a person of ethnicity. ”
how does this: “The officers sent epithet-laden text messages denigrating blacks, gays, Filipinos and Mexicans. ” equate to anon’s comment above?
they’ve released the texts, i don’t think even bp or frankly can defend this, don feel free to edit though i think in this case, the raw words illustrate the point.
Yes, they sound racist, so what, there are racist people in the world. There’s no defending what they said or wrote. So what’s your point, is the whole SF Police Dept. racist? You are going to find examples of racists in every walk of life, blacks, whites and every nationality.
my point is several fold.
first, you, frankly, anon, lady, tbd often try to minimize the extent of these incidents. anon suggested it was minor – the language here shows otherwise.
second, is the whole sfpd racist? no
third, it is true that there are racist people in the world but as phil coleman, former police chief in davis stated the other day, police officers have tremendous amounts of discretion. given their attitudes toward minorities, it scares the dickens out of me their judgment. while i don’t think the sfpd is racist, i wonder exactly where the oversite was here.
“You are going to find examples of racists in every walk of life, blacks, whites and every nationality.” i agree. that doesn’t make this okay.
In 2013 24.3% of all hate crime offenders were black. According to the last census, blacks make up 12.6% of the population. That means that blacks commit hate crimes at nearly double the rate of their population percentage. So with this data it stands to reason that we would be more likely to see text messaging from black police that are racist and full of hateful words. Are we looking at and reporting on those text messages, or only those of white cops?
But the point here is that words, even ugly and vile words, are not actions. Especially words that were deemed to be private between friends… thuggish and stupid friends, but friends nonetheless.
Other than to agree that the text messages are certainly disturbing, racist and hateful… let’s be honest. The job of a cop in most any large urban area in the US is going to result in more stressful and difficult encounters with residents of color. And has we can see in placed like Ferguson, although it is clear that law enforcement there needs to improve, the level of disrespect the black community gives the cops just adds to the stress and difficulty they have doing their jobs. Were these cops blowing off steam with their ugly banter… something that would prevent them from exploding in action during an encounter? Or was the content of their messaging proof that they would police with the same ugly bias?
I think the probability is the former not the later.
Think about any job dealing with the ugly side of the public. Even in my company my employees get to internally blow off steam dealing with a difficult customer… but then they go on to treat the customer with the common high courtesy and service level that is our standard policy.
Words are not actions. We need to stop the policing of words as if they are actions. People should be allowed to say stupid stuff and other people should be able to call out the stupid stuff. But the persecution of people should be based only on actions and behavior. Persecution over the use of words is an Orwellian slippery slope.
Frankly, don’t forget the reluctance of the “system” to file hate crime charges against people of color. I’m sure it’s higher than the figures you mention.
Yes, we should review the text messages and email of all officers and staff, but the POA and lawyers will probably fight that.
DP wrote: “first, you, frankly, anon, lady, tbd often try to minimize the extent of these incidents”
No, we just rarely have evidence of such. We get conclusions before we even have facts or a full picture of any situation.
We do hear about hurt feelings, guesswork, supposition, theories, more guesses, hypothesis, conjecture, illogical thinking, irrational thinking, logic based on emotion, conclusions based on minimal or few facts (Barack Obama, Harvard professor incident), conclusions based upon lies (like Ferguson), leaders who make allegations for political advantage (Hillary Clinton), leaders who are charlatans (Al Sharpton), leaders who are radical with an agenda (Eric Holder), and other various motivations.
Frankly does make good points about those horrible texts. Do these texts need to match actions, or can they be fired for ugly thoughts? I do think as officers of the law they should be held to a better standard, but I also know people who have never uttered a single ugly word who nevertheless will go more than a decade without hiring a single Latino or African American while hiring hundreds of workers from China and India. To me, that smells.
“Frankly does make good points about those horrible texts. Do these texts need to match actions, or can they be fired for ugly thoughts? I do think as officers of the law they should be held to a better standard,”
based on the sheer ugliness of the texts, i would say, they’ll get fired even if there is never an action tied to it. too egregious. too bad a mark for the pd to overcome. it’s about public relations in the public sector, and about marketing in the private sector.
DP, I agree. Also better to send a clear message that this is unacceptable.
As I understand these were private text messages on their private devices. If there is any persecution that is justified related to the “PR” damage, it would be for the cops to persecute those that disclosed their private messages to the public for damage to them personally.
If the text messages were on devices owned by the public then it is a different animal.
“In 2013 24.3% of all hate crime offenders were black. According to the last census, blacks make up 12.6% of the population. That means that blacks commit hate crimes at nearly double the rate of their population percentage”
interesting that this line appears almost identically in a number of right wing blogs including a white supremacist site. leaving aside the accuracy of the statistic, are you now admitting that law enforcement is equitably enforcing hate crime legislation? because for months, you, tbd, and bp were arguing otherwise?
btw, proof of your plagerism: ” In 2013 24.3% of all hate crime offenders were black. According to the last census, blacks make up 12.6% of the population.” site: http://downtrend.com/71superb/new-fbi-stats-blacks-more-likely-to-commit-hate-crimes-than-any-other-race
I forgot to put quotes around it. My bad.
But why do you go on a personal attack when you read stats you don’t like instead of coming back with evidence to disprove the stats you don’t like? It is a disappointing tendency that I see a lot on both sides of arguments, but much more from the folks that tend to be on the same side you frequent.
If this comment is incorrect I welcome the correction.
But at this point you are just demonstrating whining about it.
The statistical analysis here is a bit tricky. The right wing blogs were quick to latch on the double the population but failed to note that while 25% is more than their share of the population, it’s less than half the rate of incarceration. Moreover, if blacks are overrepresentated among hate crime assailants, they are also vastly overrepresented among victims. So which number is most important?
If this article by American Renaissance is even half true, hate crime statistics are a travesty. BTW, I don’t typically read AR, in case you don’t think it is PC.
A Meaningless “Hate Crimes” Report
Huge problems:
1. “To begin with the inexcusable, it still lists Hispanics as a victim category but not as a perpetrator category. Offenders can only be white, black, Indian/Eskimo, or Asian, so despite the fact that Hispanics are the second largest group in the country, as offenders they are lumped in with whites.”
2. “Homosexuals, the handicapped, Jews, Muslims, etc. are carefully classified as victims, but never as perpetrators.”
3. “As we will see, local reporting to the DOJ on “hate crimes” is so wildly inconsistent that it is not possible to take any of this information seriously, but what does this report claim to tell us?”
4. “The fact is, there is really no point in trying to puzzle over what this report means because the data are meaningless. The Department of Justice itself concedes that not all police departments report data. Hawaii has simply opted out of the program, and New Jersey didn’t bother to send any information for 2012.”
5. “New Orleans had only two hate crimes, and Philadelphia’s population of 1.5 million produced only 11.”
http://www.amren.com/features/2013/11/a-meaningless-hate-crime-report/
The reporting of data is a problem across the board, we saw the same thing with national reporting on officer involved shootings. But I didn’t raise the hate crimes report and am not clear as to why it was raised anyway in the context of this article. The officers are not accused of hate crimes, they are accused of making racist comments.
So your question indicated a black and white (no pun intended) category as assailant or victim. Why wouldn’t you accept that people can be both? In fact, I would expect that people that are one are more likely the other too.
DP–the Vanguard has had several articles encouraging readers and the general public to have an honest discussion about racism. But then when somebody strays from the progressive mandated correct viewpoint, comments such as “Interesting that this line appears almost identically in a number of right wing blogs including a white supremacist site” tend to pop up, which of course tends to smear the apostate by association with racist groups.
Dumb-bells and doughnuts often cite progressive blog statistics; however that doesn’t make you a dumb-bell or doughnut, so what is the point of mentioning it?
Interesting. Those left leaning posters on the VG opine that theses police should be persecuted for hurtful things typed on their private devices, yet they also opine that Hillary Clinton is being unfairly persecuted for damaging words illegally typed on her personal devices for public work.
It is contradictions like this that destroy credibility for capability to be objective.
I have no idea what you’re referring to with respect to Hilary Clinton, but I doubt her comments rise even remotely to the level of what the officers are quoted as saying. I consider that a pointless deflection on your part.
Their comments, private or otherwise, are so egregiously bad that they call into question the ability of those officers to serve in any capacity where they would interact with the public. This isn’t “blowing off steam.” The attitudes of these officers toward others would become problematic for prosecutors in any case they are involved in, especially going forward. You are making unbelievable excuses for something that is completely inexcusable.
You should confiscate my personal text device to discover all the hateful things I write about liberals to blow off steam so I can go do do my job working with a bunch of them.
You have know idea what the attitudes of the officer are, just like you would not be able to assess my REAL attitudes by reading my text messages to people that I feel safe bantering with using extreme language.
You should stop practicing psychology without a license.
It is really a sad, sad situation where we are heading allowing the speech code police to persecute everyone except their own inner circle. Orwellian it is.
How about this: there is no place for racist, sexist, homophobic speech. That’s the way I was raised. Not real sure about how you were raised if you think those words are ok and just “blowing off steam.”
Unlike your constant behavior on the Vanguard, I made no inferences about their psychological state. It is pretty easy to see racist attitudes because they’ve clearly expressed them. I don’t use those words in reference to anyone. Do you? Amazing that you, of all people, are portraying the police officers here as victims.
Part of the problem is that they got caught up in a prosecution for a corruption crime. Ordinarily private text messages would not have come to light, but now that they are you have a PR problem for the department and frankly, because you are, a safety problem for the officers making those texts.
It is simply astounding how far you go in demonstrating the shallow thinking of a deep mind.
Really, you can’t extend this type of thing to other persecution of PRIVATE speech just because someone else considers it bad or wrong? You can’t see the problem with that?
You live out in the sticks and advocate that everyone else lives in tenement camps to save precious farm land that we lack the water to farm… and with people being on top of each other, one neighbor hears everything that the other neighbor says… and is offended by what is said. He calls the speech police and they come confiscate that other neighbors communication devices, takes a statement and they persecute that other neighbor.
You appear to support that type of thing. Astounding.
I was raised to understand that there are dangerous hypersensitive and controlling people in the world that cannot seem to get the concept of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom to not be persecuted for PRIVATE conversation that someone else finds offensive.
This is just collective McCarthyism. When will all have to frog march?
The text messages were part of a private conversation. Terrible things were said/written. It was nobody’s damn business. Nobody was hurt by it, except after it was broadcast and only by those unable to differentiate simple words from REAL material harm from actions.
Note, I know people that go off privately similar to the type of stuff written and they would never let it influence their behavior.
You can police actions, but you cannot police thoughts. Apparently you don’t get this.
I live on a farm. We have plenty of water for our farm. Yolo County farmers have sufficient water to farm. This series of statements is false and is a desperate attempt at painting me as a hypocrite. Dumb rhetoric.
I do not support or even appear to support any such thing. The statement is false and is a desperate attempt at painting me as an extremist. More dumb rhetoric.
There are some jobs where the beliefs expressed in that private speech would not be an issue regarding the ability to perform the job. Clearly being a police officer is not one of those jobs, since officers need to interact respectfully with the public across races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations.
Hyperbole much?
Private speech can become relevant if there is evidence of behavior that does constitute real material harm.
Do you call them on it? Or do you just laugh and say ‘blowing off steam’?
So you’re ok with racist cops, then? If not, how about you stop making excuses for racist cops?
How do you know they are racist? You don’t have a clue. All you have is some text messages. You don’t know any of them.
You write ignorant things sometimes does that mean you are an ignorant person? You write agreement with hard left liberal idea, does that mean you are a hard right liberal. You write things that match what environmental extremists demand, does that mean you are an environmental extremist. You write things that demonstrate you agree with some of the concepts of Marxism and Communism, does that mean you are one or both?
You have lost your cool several times blogging with me and others and wrote what can be considered hurtful words against them. Does that mean you are a mean and hurtful person?
And then we have copious words and actions from our President that clearly define him and you deny it. So are you just a tone deaf biased person lacking the ability to reason when it comes to your politics?
Really sucks being labeled. You of all people respond so viscerally against being labeled, yet you really have no problem doing it to others.
It is interesting to say the least.
You need to stop making excuses for racism. The rest of your words on this topic, the ad hominems and pointless deflections and irrelevant comparisons, are just empty.
Stop making excuses for racism, Frankly.
Frankly wrote:
Here’s a clue.
Frankly, I flashed on the beloved Michael Brown reading your missive. Think of this, the young man that some consider a saint tossed a store clerk around like a rag doll, stole merchandise, and then a short time later assaulted a police officer and attempted to take his gun – most likely to kill him. We now know this as fact. Is it also possible that Brown was racist, and that he wouldn’t have attacked a black police officer? Is it possible his attack was also a hate crime?
Yet these texts, which are troubling, have yet to be proven to have spurred action. Have we yet learned that any of these officers were reprimanded, or accused of racial bias in all their years on the force?
The unintentional hypocrisy of many of us is funny at times, especially when you point that out, Frankly.
Any episode of COPS would, to many of you, and does to me, a desire never to be in law enforcement.
Cops and Prosecutors see the worst people, not lawbreakers, but people who make their living playing the system and lying to almost anyone in their lives to get away with something. They see them day after day, and sometimes the gallows humor, however bad, is a release. Of course the knee-jerks in SF have now rewritten the books of Police Oversight, by injecting a bunch of amateurs who may get cases thrown out while the wheels of justice grind to a halt.
As we have seen in Ferguson, the truth does not matter. It is only the agenda that counts.
Hands up, don’t shoot! {cough}
I had assumed that these were pd departmental-owned text devices (?cell phones presumably?); are you sure they were privately owned? How about the device communications service plan; was it paid for by the pd or were they private service plans?
If both the device and service plan were private property (as contrasted with police property) I fully agree that the text should not be made public, and the officers should not be disciplined or fired, even for racist comments.
However if both the device and service plan were employer property (?pd?) the officers should definitely be disciplined (including perhaps something like sensitivity or harassment courses, mandatory attendance!) Unfortunately the content of the texts were made public, so as I see it the pd has no choice but to fire them (politically impossible to retain them; very bad PR).
Wish the article had more details; who is responsible for publicly disseminating the transcripts of their communications, and was this public dissemination done legally?
I agree Tribe. As far as I know they were personal devices and the text conversation was not during work hours.
Orwellian.
Scary as hell where this country is headed.
Frankly–geez, on their own time as well? (for some reason I had the impression from media reports, which in hindsight is likely incorrect, that these were texted while they were on duty, during a break period).
Later tonite or tomorrow I’ll try to figure out how these were made public–presumably by illegal means? Is the police department (not the officers involved, though!) searching for the perp(s) who invaded their privacy and disseminated their private information to the public? Who’s next?
oops, I googled and found out these texts were made public during a bail hearing for one of the officers indicted in a corruption case. I don’t know enough about the law and bail hearings to know whether or not information such as all records of private correspondence can legally be disseminated publicly if presented in a bail hearing? Surely not all info. that comes out in a bail hearing can be publicized? Does anyone know these points of the law?
[moderator]deleted, off topic
Frankly
“Especially words that were deemed to be private between friends… thuggish and stupid friends, but friends nonetheless.”
The question I have is do we really want thuggish and stupid individuals to be on our police forces ? I agree with you that these individuals have every right to communicate in any fashion that they want with their friends. That does not mean that I would trust their judgement when using their discretion on whom to detain, arrest or search. Their right to free speech does not mean that they should not be held to the higher standard of exemplary attitudes and behaviors that we should expect of our police. Also, I noted that you have slipped back and forth between thoughts and speech. We have no ability at all to monitor or “police” someone’s thoughts. However, there are limits on freedom of speech which come in to play in cases in which there may be real danger such as incitement to violence. Some of these communications could be read as encouraging others to perform violent acts. When you assert that you think this is “more likely” blowing off steam, I think that it is you who are “practicing psychology without a license” in a situation in which there is the possibility for very real harm if one of these “stupid thugs” reads one of these posts as a call to action.
I also feel that how one expresses oneself is an indication of how one’s mind works. The quote that I found most telling was the comment about his child’s classmates and how he was keeping a close eye on them. How can this be interpreted as just “blowing off steam”?How can you pretend that such prejudice used against children would not represent his fundamental viewpoint of the world, not some frustration at a higher rate of crime in his black precincts than in white ?
Ummm, Tia Will, then why didn’t you apply everything you just stated when it came to the Fayyaz comments?
I disagree Tia. People say (and think) stuff all the time that is not an accurate representation of who they are. Look at me… I am a friendly guy, but I but many people that read my Frankly posts and have not met me in person most likely think I am Atilla the Hun.
Should we call Brian Williams a liar because he embellished a story or three?
Is Paula Deen a racist because she admitted to using the N world 30 years ago?
I can tell you that people can say some really stupid things hanging with their friends. They can amp it up beyond anything they really believe in.
The person I know that goes of on rants that come close to what those officers said is a great person. Very friendly. But also prone to tirades that are completely politically correct and would result him being persecuted by the word and thought police if any heard it. Well this is a person a person of color so maybe not.
We make huge mistakes making that leap that words said or written define who we are. Words can give and indication… but generally a lot of words at different times to demonstrate a consistent pattern. However, that still does not cut it in most cases unless actions can be connected. Actions do speak much louder than words.
More sensitive people have a stronger and more visceral response to certain words or phrases. I see it all the time in my personal life and in my professional life. It seems that the we have gone way too far in responding to this higher sensitivity. College campuses are a mess these days… students claiming “they don’t feel safe” from certain speech and certain topics that are quite benign and useful for education. We are on a terrible trajectory related to this. It is absolutely wrong.
I had a friend years ago who was a cop who said that when he pulled over a car of young black men, his senses hightened, he called for backup, and he was ready to defend his life. He could recite a litany of highly disproportionate crime statistics that would make you shudder.
My friend was also black, did more for his community than anyone I have known, and never once fired his weapon in all the years prior to my meeting him, and all the years I knew him.
blacks are not immune to impact of unconscious bias and stereotyping. it’s no more healthy there than elsewhere.
BP
“Ummm, Tia Will, then why didn’t you apply everything you just stated when it came to the Fayyaz comments?”
Fair question which I believe I have addressed on several occasions, but will be happy to do so again. Ms. Fayaz is a student. As such her primary responsibility is to learn. That learning can take many forms including learning the hard way to express herself more diplomatically. However, Ms. Fayaz is not charged with protecting anyone. Nor does she have any authority over anyone. She does not have an responsibility to protect anyone or the ability to detain, arrest, or shoot anyone. It is my belief that with great privilege and great trust goes great responsibility. The police are given the power of life and death over civilians and are charged with the responsibility to protect us. Ms. Fayaz had no such oblgation. That to me is the difference.
I have come to the conclusion that some liberals are backed into a corner with conflict resulting from the obsession with fairness and victim mentality and their irrational utopian view that the world would be a better place if we rid ourselves of the hard enforcement and replaced it with the softer ruling power of their superior education and intellect.
It is the matriarchy model versus the patriarchy model debate.
The Obama foreign policy model is a matriarchal model… passive when it is aggressive, and largely looking to talk and hug it through to resolution.
How is that working out? Not very well by the state of the world. Bet we again have to send a lot of American boys and girls back out there to clean up the mess.
The public education system is a matriarchy model… how is that working out?
Ironically it is working out so damn bad that the police are slammed with illiterate and unemployable young men that have nothing but free time on their hands to do crime.
The social services model is a matriarchal model. How is that working out. Poverty and hunger fixed yet? Nope, it has grown worse.
And the matriarchy model demanders persecute the soldiers and cops for doing the harsh job they have to do, even as most soldiers and cops would rather it be less harsh.
These liberals either do not get it and are going about solving the problems from the wrong end, or they are a direct danger to the ongoing preservation of our reasonably free and secure life.
The source of our crappy race relations is the crappy education system and the crappy economy that is largely constrained by liberal demands for less industrialism and greater taxes and regulations. The hopelessness in the black neighborhoods is from too little opportunity for economic prosperity… that at its root has been caused by decades of failed liberal politics.
And so liberals blame the cops. And they blame the soldiers. They blame the patriarchy working hard to keep us all safe and secure while the liberal experiments keep twisting us further and further down.
The sad thing is that it does not appear we can stop the decline. Tocqueville said as much would happen. There was hope that the US was different, but apparently it will suffer the same fate as all societies growing softer and less capable to accept the struggle and hard work and tough love that is required to keep it all together.
Frankly, I can see little reference to the advantages of the “Patriarchal model” in your post. My experience is that the somewhat equal combination of the matriarchal AND patriarchal influences have the best results,… are you willing to elaborate?
I have a similar point. Wasn’t Gingrich / Clinton’s welfare reform a hybrid? Welfare for a few years, then the consequences of getting cut off when you haven’t gotten your butt in gear. Yes, Obama has chipped away at the patriarchal side,
First, I had consumed a couple of cocktails last night so I missed some of the needed nuance in my post. What I should have written was patriarchal-dominated model versus matriarchal-dominated model.
As with everything in life, doing well means achieving a balance.
I think we accomplished many, many, many great things and became fabulously successful because we had a balance that was patriarchal-dominated. Testosterone is a wonderful hormone when harnessed the right way, and a terrible one when it is not.
But balance is always the key.
I think liberals in general are people that, for many different reasons, never really feel connected and comfortable in a patriarchal-dominated model. And it appears to me that as we have become more and more successful and life becomes more and more relatively easy, more of us slip into a mindset of recoil for the father model, and demand the softer unconditional surround of a mother model.
Again, I am not advocating all or nothing, I am advocating for a balance.
Liberals are obviously dragging the US toward a more matriarchal-dominated model. In their mind that would be a system that better cares for people, better creates equal outcomes, better eliminates conflict, better calms the nerves of the hypersensitive and ensures that words will not harm them. They push this agenda with several methods, but one common one is to amplify the instances of brutishness and harm.
But the other thing liberals do that is the most infuriating to me is to discount the ingredients to the good life they enjoy that allows them time and resources to push their agenda. And most of those ingredients were provided by the patriarchal-dominated models of our past.
I think the mother-dominated model is largely a false utopian nightmare. The balance is being tipped way too far and far too fast.
The problem in Ferguson and the general problems with race relations in this country are directly attributable to this change that liberals are pushing. Black males are the absolutely most incompatible demographic to try and force into this new motherly box, and they are extremely resisting the attempts in their behavior and it is demonstrated in their pop culture. Then the cops are required to step in to prevent harm and they then become the target of frustration of the black community and the liberals pile on the blame. And with this it is no surprise that cops text ugly words to blow off steam.
Should there be an equal combination of patriarchal and matriarchal influences? In general I would say yes, but there is more to it if we are going to achieve balance.
How do we harness testosterone? How do we keep ourselves safe and secure in a world where many places in the world testosterone is out of control and armed to the teeth and backed by a corrupt religious influence?
Testosterone is cannot be outlawed. It exists. It always will. Mothers generally never know what to do with it. They are clueless in this respect as they are brilliant in other concerns. Liberals appear to be wired the same.
Would the short-hand version be that Tough Love trumps Unconditional Love?
Even in my generation the way I got money was first chores, and then working. My parents didn’t hand me money for no reason at 10 or older. Now it is quite common for children to have smart phones, and pockets flowing with money for Jamba Juice after school, starbucks, iTune, drugs… and I rarely see kids with chores. Jobs occasionally creep in late in high school.
Same goes for the Mom’s who make 4 different meals… the inmates are running the asylum! How will they have decent relationships if they think the world revolves around the tip of their nose?
Frankly
Well now that is certainly an interesting take. It sounds very similar to what certain hard line Islamists are saying. They also espouse a patriarchal model in which men should rule and women and anyone else who values civility or brutality should know their place.
Yes, and the ‘matriarchal’ examples of Golda Meir, Ms Bhutto, Catherine the ‘Great’, etc. show us how benevolent their governments/societies were for their people, and those that opposed their ”matriarchal’ positions. Read your history. Neither men nor women have have the franchise for good, nor evil.
Patriarchal or matriarchal is not male or female. Just ask Margaret Thatcher.
this patriarchal/ matriarchal stuff is ridiculous nonsense that is distracting us from addressing the core issues presented here.
This reminds me of my mom at the dinner table trying to get the boys to stop arguing sports and politics.
The first departure due to this situation has occurred, and it is a police officer who happens to be a 20-year-plus veteran and openly gay. He has resigned.
The only text released so far that he sent was his repeatedly calling another officer “fag”. I gather to be consistent that if any African American officer uses the fabled N-word, they should be gone, too.
“Ironically, one of the four — Michael Robison, 46, who joined the Police Department in 1992 — is himself openly gay. In 1998, Robison was quoted in the gay magazine the Advocate as saying, “I’m treated like one of the guys. … The ‘good ole boy’ system is on its way out, and the new generation that has replaced them sees things from a more open-minded standpoint.”
In their court filing Friday, Furminger’s prosecutors said he had sent repeated texts calling another officer a “fag.”
“No one is championing the bigotry and racism in those words,” said Robison’s attorney, Tony Brass. “But these cops are in a very politically correct department, and when they blow off steam they do it by being the very opposite of politically correct.’’
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/M-R-SFPD-looking-at-10-more-officers-in-6139314.php
TBD–good post. The last paragraph does have a ring of truth to it (I suspect it is accurate for most, though perhaps not all, instances of insensitive words and phrases), as Frankly has mentioned in a few of his posts above. Between some of the vicious and dangerous street thugs the police have to deal with, and the politically straightjacketed police administration, it does make sense that many officers are often in a pressure-cooker environment and do need to blow off some steam occasionally–would be interesting to interview a panel of officers (would need to be retired or moved to another city to speak frankly, I guess) on what kind of pressures the san francisco police officers have to deal with.