Cop Suspended Over Offensive Videos

Others face discipline over racist, sexist, homophobic spoof

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- An officer was suspended and others face discipline after making videos containing sexist, racist and homophobic material for an office Christmas party, officials said.

About 20 officers participated in creating or performing in the videos, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong said.

City officials said the videos, created as a spoof about life on the force, include a skit of a white police officer in a patrol car running over a black homeless woman. (Watch excerpts of the video -- 2:15)

"This is a dark day, an extremely dark day, in the history of the San Francisco Police Department," said Fong, who called the acts "egregious, shameful and despicable."

"It is shameful, it is offensive, it is sexist, it is homophobic and it is racist," Newsom said. "We're going to make sure that it ends, it ends immediately."

Cohen defending the video as satiric and blasted the police chief during an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday.

"After the video was seen, now they're pulling race cards," Cohen said. "It was just made for us, so shame on her," he added, referring to Wong.

"We did this absolutely for morale purposes," Cohen explained. "We did it because there are some very fun and interesting characters at the station and we thought it would be fun to showcase and laugh at their idiosyncrasies and personalities."

His attorney, Daniel Horowitz, said Cohen wasn't informed he was suspended, and paperwork showed he had been moved to a file room.

Horowitz defended the videos as art, saying they contained self-analytical material that reflected how the community saw police.

"Maybe it is dumb, and if it is dumb, who is releasing this nationally?" the attorney said on KRON-TV. "The mayor and the police chief."

The department's internal affairs division launched an investigation after the videos were discovered on an officer's Web site. They have since been removed.

In one video, which spoofed the TV show "Charlie's Angels," three gun-toting police women in T-shirts and blue jeans report to a police captain, who sits behind a desk and suggestively licks his lips.

Through the rest of the clip, a street person, an apparent transvestite, and several others lick their lips in a similar manner and say, "Ohhh, captain."

Another video showed a lazy pair of officers who ignored several dispatches while reading the newspaper, napping in their cruiser and practicing martial arts in a parking lot.

When gunshots are reported, they race off with their lights flashing and siren wailing -- only to show up at a massage parlor the driver had spotted in a magazine ad.