SFPD Video Scandal

[ ](https://www.sfgate.com/g/av/movies/2005/12/08/tapescandal01_m4.mov) [watch me!](https://www.sfgate.com/g/av/movies/2005/12/08/tapescandal01_m4.mov) Members of the SFPD recently posted a video to the internet which has generated a large amount of controversy. From the [Chronicle:](https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/08/SFCOPS.TMP) About 20 San Francisco police officers will be suspended because of their alleged involvement in what the mayor and police chief describe as videos that mock minorities and treat women as sex objects, the officials said Wednesday night…. An officer at the department’s Bayview station, who is among those ordered suspended, produced the videos over the past two years using other officers and acquaintances and intended them as morale boosters, he and his attorney said Wednesday night. The officer denied he had done anything wrong, and his attorney said the suspensions were a politically motivated attack on free speech. In my opinion this is not an issue of free speech. First off, as Andrew Cohen, one of the officers central to the investigation, had been hired to produce video for the [police department](https://www.sfpoa.org/hearts/hearts.html), so this video was in all likelihood made possible by the tax payers of San Francisco. Furthermore, unless the officers can prove that they were off-duty while shooting and producing this video, then this is what they were working on when they could’ve been actually doing their jobs and that is obviously a major problem.