There's two interesting components to this story that's getting a bit of play. One of them is the failure to arrest anyone and weird things about how it was handled. The other one is the people involved. This being a small city, there's not anything that doesn't happen in the city without someone of note being involved.
First up, the cops. After the fracas, they detained four of the assailants but let them go. As of right now, nobody has been arrested as police are saying they're still collecting evidence. They also didn't take pictures, although people at the party did. None of this is standard police practice which is why people are thinking they might be protecting the assailant Rich Aicardi's family.
Meanwhile, the deal is big enough that the President of Yale weighed in to say he was "shocked" by all of this and members of the choir's families have hired the lawfirm of Gonzalez & Leigh. Matier & Ross also go on to say that even though the kids have to come back and deal with it, most of them are really scared of coming back.
Now the people involved, mainly the people hosting the party. This wasn't your standard couple, they're people both with connections to the SFPD. The couple were Reno Rapagnani, a retired SFPD lawyer, and his wife, Leanna Dawydiak. Dawydiak is a decorated San Francisco Police officer and was Commissioner on the San Francisco Delinquency Prevention Commission amongst other things. In other words, she's a slightly big fish. She also ran for the Board of Supervisors in 2004. As for Rapagnani, he at various times worked on the bomb squad and was one of Art Agnos' bodyguards. He was awarded seven medals of valor.
Their big claim to fame, however, was during FaijitaGate. During the investigation, the two of them went public accusing the police department of withholding certain things to investigators. At the same time, a memo was leaked to the press that made the SFPD look bad and the SFPD tried to crack down on whoever was leaking the memos, in somewhat questionable ways and accused Dawydiak and Rapagnini of leaking the memos in something someone called as a “witch hunt.” Both sued to try and clear their names, which they were. Still, what happened to them is reverberating around as the police were caught doing all sorts of things they shouldn't have done and nobody seems to care.
Now all of this could mean something. All of this could mean nothing-- sometimes a coincidence is a coincidence. As we said, it's a small city. Still, we don't think this story is going to die down anytime soon.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area five years ago from southern California and can say one thing is very true for most of the Bay Area’s law enforcement is the practice of selective policing. I personally sadly doubt that anything will happen in this case regarding the savage beating of the Yale singers group after singing a patriotic song. From my observation, San Francisco is not a patriotic place and the simple singing of a patriotic song like "The Star-Spangled Banner" is enough to get one hospitalized or worse. Further conservative looking businessmen are frequently attacked either by gangs of rich kids or mobs that frequently result in no convictions or in some cases zero police reports recorded to track the trend. It is no surprise that these men were attacked while in San Francisco as they were out of place on several levels; singing patriotic songs, looking conservative, etc…
Civil rights in San Francisco are a joke and only protect those the police, DA and mayor’s office feel is worth it, forget about federal intervention it simply just does not happen in the 9th District court area for matters concerning the protection of white, middle-class and conservative looking men. Equal protection, equal investigation just does not happen in SF. The professionalism at all levels is lacking in many of the bay areas police departments and courtrooms.
Many Bay Area police officers make LAPD’s Rampart Division look like quire boys so it is no surprise in the case of the Star-Spangled-Banner singer’s case is getting very little attention. Simply put the bay area is more about an underground drug culture whose profits prop up the elect, anything that threatens that system appears to be harshly and swiftly dealt with, as witnessed in this case by street thugs stomping out any appearance of mainstream America from the streets of San Francisco.
As for 19-year-old Richard Aicardi “allegedly the most aggressive” (as the ABC story states) attacker in this melee of hated I can see that. Looks like a rich kid that did not make into the “Ivy League” is just trying to buildup his criminal rap-sheet to make it into the prison league. However, it’s possible this incident is nothing his mommy’s script pad will not get him out of eventually.
If Mr. Reno Rapagnani statement about Richard Aicardi saying: "He said, 'I'm 20 deep, my boys are coming.'", then young Mr. Richard Aicardi clearly and with premeditation organize a gangland style mob attack on these men that were evidently attempting to leave peacefully. This all shows the type of organized crime mafia types (from the young to the old lawyer) that lurk around the Police and Doctor’s of San Francisco.
I think you've seen Escape from New York one too many times, Justin.
Umm...what?
I frequently see hordes of purple winged howler monkees beating the holy living crap out of fundamentalist Christian youth groups here in the city. No arrests. Don't get me started on what the fricking unicorns get away with at the Veteran's Day parade downtown, while the SFPD cheers them on. I've probably said too much already.
I'm still waiting for more details before I make judgements, but it's no surprise that SFPD is again involved in another scandal. If anything can bring Newsom down in popularity, it's his allegiance to this very troubled department and chief. We need someone outside of SF to come in and clean house!
Nobody else is asking the big question yet, so I suppose it's up to me:
When's this thing gonna become a "-gate"?
It's just not a scandal unless it's been "-gated."
ChoirGate? YalieGate? Anthem-Gate?
Once it's been "-gated," and the major media gloms on, answers are sure to come.
SF is not as cool as everyone would like to think. Amidst all this open-mindedness is a rich upper-crust steeped in privilege and bigotry. Its really too bad- the Aicardi kids are just going to grow up to be rich knuckle-draggers- but with all that money- they won't even care- look at Brandon Davis- enough said.
It's no surprise someone from Southern California where everyone is taught to think and act the same and follows Fox News more than their bible would think that SF is an unpatriotic city. Shove it buddy. The incident has NOTHING to do with what song the choir was singing.
A bunch of rich kids come into town in suits to a house party on New Years. Like it or not anywhere you go I would think you would catch some flak for that. There are locals in San Francisco just like there are in New York or Philly. People will say something about that. The question is what went down and how it really escalated. It sounds like the Aicardi kid is in the wrong but I am not passing judgement until I get the whole story. This kind of shit happens all the time and like someone said in the previous Yale article the SFPD will usually let drunken brawlers go as long as there is no weapon play. Obviously there are a lot of cons to that, but if the four assalaints were arrested the kids from Yale would have been too, so there you go.
I am a little stunned by most of the previous comments here. A group of guys were attacked, not because they looked conservative and sang the Star Spangeled Banner, they were attacked because they were perceived to be gay.
When a gang of late teen early twenties men set upon a group of people and kick the living shit out of them,it is not a hum dee humm run of the mill occurance, or shouldn't be.
That nobody was brought to the station, or photos not taken?
This story stinks.
If a gang of black kids were beating up those Yale kids, would their names have been taken and then sent on their merry way? NO WAY.
This was double standards, and a lot of noise needs to be made and justice served.
i live in the neighborhood and heard all the police activity that night. from what i hear, the real reason this got squelched is because of all the underage drinking that went on at the home of 2 former police officers that night.
I love the use of "quire" like "squire" but missing...SSSSsomething. That would describe Richie and his buddies.
I vote for "Choir v. Quire" as the catchy phrase.
or maybe..."Quiregate?"
This was a hate crime.
The members of the Yale Choral are or were perceived as gay.
The guys who beat them shouted "Fag" and "Homo" before they attacked them.
So, San Francisco hosts underage drinking parties that cater to homophobic rich kids that hate anyone dressed nicely on New Years Eve that can sing and had a GPA excellent enough to attend Yale. Why should this surprise anyone? San Francisco is known for breaking laws, not enforcing laws and being completely hypocritical. Further, San Francisco has a long running reputation of not being patriotic, anti-U.S., pro terrorist, anti-military, anti-navy, anti-rotc, flag burning and now Star-Spangled-Banner singer bashing. Yes some how a bet the young-fascist-liberals will still blame it all on Bush, after all he did attend Yale as a cheer leader and no doubt with today’s San Francisco crowd a male Yale cheerleader would probably have a hard time walking the streets of SF – let alone performing at a private party. People want to believe in the Hollywood version of San Francisco the reality is much sicker, dirty and twisted for most.
So now we have Gay bashing young homophobe’s not being arrested after a blatant assault - wherein a lawyer is quoted as hearing one of the assailants call for back-up for a premeditated beating of said Yale singers. The ABC news story notes Rich Aicardi took out his cell phone and called in reinforcements as stated by Reno Rapagnani: "He said, 'I'm 20 deep, my boys are coming.'" So I ask why is this news worthy? It is nothing more than a rich young doctor’s (Eileen Aicardi) kid calling a few of his friends over to beat-up some out of town kids… why should the police care? The singers were from out of town anyway and the DA could probably none happier for additional case load.
The real story here is how many people are assaulted in San Francisco and their reports to police handled the same way with no real dated police report taken or crime stats generated… so that others can believe the fairly tale FBI crime statistics for San Francisco and be lured into a false sense of security when visiting.
This clearly shows just how unsophisticated San Francisco and Dr. Eileen Aicardi’s Son Richard Aicardi are. It is ludicrous that men dressed in jacket, brown slacks and a tie in San Francisco that happened to be invited to a party to sing be heckled as gay and then beaten. What kind of child did Dr. Eileen Aicardi raise? I’m sure Rich Aicardi had many opportunities, educational and social advantages being the son of an allegedly prominent San Francisco pediatrician (as the ABC-news article states) and as a recent article states she is a pediatrician whose practice is filled with upper-income patients.
http://www.sanfran.com/archives/view_story/681/
What kind of monster did Dr. Eileen Aicardi raise? A son who premeditates beatings by using his cell phone to call up others to take part in mafia gangland style beating? Just where did Mr. Richard Aicardi get his ideas from – surly not from his catholic high school? http://www.smccd.net/accounts/skylineathletics/baseball/michaela.htm
From his parents? Just what kind of society and lawlessness is San Francisco unleashing on the rest of the United States? If a ground of nicely dressed, highly educated men cannot walk the streets of San Francisco with fear of being called gay and then beaten… then just who can?
So Dave the commenter thinks out-of-towners not only should not wear suits when they come visiting SF but not go to parties? Interesting logic. And since when is it not a crime when at least one kid got his jaw broken in two places and had to be wired shut?
The cops are totally useless for the avg. resident in this town. Cleaning up that department is going to take some heavy duty b..ls and I am not sure the Mayor or the Supes have it.
to sfist jer: I vote for Choirgate or plural, Choirboysgate?
Can you provide just a simple sentence of backstory when you post a story like this? I realize there are previous posts on the incident, but it would still be nice to read the post as a self-contained story without having to flip back to previous articles. Thanks!
I sense the sinister hand of Harvard behind all this!
Well, at least the trolls are citing sources now.
Well, the police haven't released anything to the media yet so as of right now this is just some rich boys sob story. Fact is Aicardi may have instigated the fight but the choir boys knew what they were getting into as they left the house. Who leaves a new years eve party at 12:30? They went outside knowing there was going to be a fight. And don't let people tell I guess they have bed times. And this isn't a hate crime before it is a brawl. Hateful words often get exchanged when fights happen and it would be very wrong to assume the choir boys said nothing back.If I heard the story correctly at the time when Aicardi called his friends for back up the bakers dozen had a big advantage in numbers. Hence why he called for his friends. Those kids lost a fight that they knew they were getting into and because they are from out of town. If I had a dime for every drunk belligerent out of towner I've seen have his ass handed to him I would be a very rich man. The real blame is to be put on Rapagnani who was very stupid to let his daughter have an unsupervised party with the presence of alcohol. He swiftly took the yale kids side because he knew he can get away with not having to take responsibility for another one of his screw ups. The cops are not to blame. Fights happen and house party's get broken up all the time without any arrest especially on new years eve aka the biggest party night of the year. This story is making headlines because the kid goes to Yale and his dad is a very prominent banker in manhattan and thats a fact people.
Well, the Chronicle has more on the story tonite, but still doesn't mention the AICARDI thug by name.
The only reason this is getting any coverage is because the victims were Yalies and the perps were rich prep-school kids. Stuff like this goes down in Hunters Point on a weekly basis and never makes the papers; where's the outrage there?
Anti-gay slurs? Please. Anyone who's been through sixth or seventh grade knows full well that when a meathead calls somebody a "fag," it usually has nothing to do with whether the target is actually gay or whether the meathead thinks the target is gay; that's just one of the first taunts that comes to a meathead's mind.
This will be an entertaining story for the outraged posturing that will play out over the next few months. But I don't see much substance there.
SFGary, I have attempted to reply to your question but have been censored by the SFist. It was a very polite response also, so why it was not allowed to be posted is not familiar to me.
Short story, like Thrasher said: this isn't about the liberal values of San Francisco creating an atmosphere for this to happen; its not homophobia, when two boys want to escalate a situation they tend to use the word faggot as a way to put down another straight oponent; this is about a fight, simple as that. Two groups squared off in the street. It happens all the time in San Francisco, and people should be ashamed of themselves for giving these boys all this attention because are Yale boys. Think about all the crime this city sees and look at what makes the front page. Perhaps if we all had a banker daddy who would call the police, the news and the mayors office we would have a lot less crime.
Hey Dave, just so you know we didn't censor anything. We try not to as a matter of policy. I think what happened is that we've been having problems with our server and for the past couple of days, the commenting section of the site has been a little off, that's all.
If such a word existed in the English language that showed my utter disguist in this situation i would have used it. Again here. Here too. And once more here.
I have lived in San Francisco for allmost my entire life, how long will remain undisclosed. Regardless, the problems of the city are far outweighed by its positive attributes. Its such a great place to live. However, in any place of prosperity and security are the filfth. Whcih would sum up the people involved in the Bakers Dozen incident.
It is true that Richard had been intoxicated that night. However, the "poor" members at the Bakers Dozen were not so saint-like. Richard should not have resolved to fists to solve this matter, that is true. But to attack the city that I love, and, when I move on, I will miss dearly.
If this attack happened anywhere else, even in your own respective town, there would have been bad mouthinga bout it. That pains me to think of how arrogant people are to talk so much shit about San Francisco for no other reasons than its policies and how it works. Like your city is perfect.
Richard and his associates are to blame not SF, his family, or SHCP (his school)
"...the simple singing of a patriotic song like "The Star-Spangled Banner" is enough to get one hospitalized or worse."
So maybe you wimpy 'star spangled banner' singers should just STFU before a san francisco fist shatters you jawbone like 'a bomb bursting in air'.
The real problem is those Yale guys believed their own election propaganda.
When that guy gets his mouth unwired he can keep talking all he wants about "wimpy San Francisco liberals" but until then he eats through a strew.
I completely agree with Ralph J. Anderson! Thank you.....I agree with those who have posted that it is unimportant to mention the high school they attended because it is not a vital part of the situation. These boys who committed the dreadful act are 19-20 and should be tried as adults. Their parents nor their previous educational experience is not needed however it makes the story more interesting for the viewers and since we hungry for more information they feed as much as possible even if it gives a bad name to those institutions who are not involved. It is unfortunate that the entire SFPD is given a bad name because of the stupidity of a couple of officers. As for "SF Dumb as rocks" bashing SF or pd as a whole is useless and i believe that it does not help the situation and if you dont like it get the hell out. You sound like someone who bashes the president yet you did not vote in the previous election-all talk no walk i am sure. I hate to be harsh in this comment and maybe it is a waste of time to be voicing my opinion on this website but it seems that many like to contradict themselves and are not helping the situation by making ignorant comments.
@ Dave
Try making an observation of your own instead of bashing other commentators.... your posts don't have much substance, but you always have a shot for someone....
TC was unafraid to retract an earlier statement, its not contradiction.... grab a dictionary, meat.
I know the family, the kids, and the catholic high school the kids went to - none of this surprises me. I don't think the parents are homophobic - just being honest. I am most concerned about the outcome i.e., will the SFPD succeed again in supressing the facts or can public opinion and the pull of Yale prevail? This is all about the old-boy network. This is another "fahita gate". The high school the boys went to (Sacred Heart Cathedral) calls their small inner-circle the "Sacred Heart Family" - the Aicardi's are part of this as are many many San Francisco police officers. Many of us who have attended the school have found that the "Family" is not all-inclusive. I sincerely hope that justice is served and that we can all learn to respect the individual above all else - something that the Catholic schools are not teaching.
JP- Give me a break. You are vilifying a nice family that I'm sure you have no knowledge of. A 19 year old got drunk at a New Years party and said and did some things that he will regret for a very long time. I'm sure that this story might evolve when all these "innocent" Choir boys come to the interrogation room and have to cop to their individual roles in this event. In the meantime Idiots like you are fueling this issue in an attempt to make it some rally call for gay rights in S.F.- Whatever happened to a fair trial?
This whole story is a load of crap, conjured up by Dan Noyes of ABC as a way to get at Gavin Newsom by criticizing the Police Department. I am one of many who knows the whole Aicardi family, and you could not ask for nicer people. They are successful but not rich, certainly not nearly in the category of some of the Yale kids, and why does any of that matter anyway? The Aicardi boys are not gay bashers; they are good kids. Clearly there was a fight, and maybe they were involved and maybe they weren't, and maybe someone else started it, but this nonsense of concluding who did what to whom before the facts are out is as idiotic as convicting the Duke lacrosse players before those facts were out too.
Dr. Eileen Aicardi is a pediatrician who lives in the hills of Mill Valley (a jog up the road from a good friend of mine), practices both in Marin and San Francisco and has five sons. According to most reports, three of her sons were involved in the assault. The father of one of the injured Yale singers is reported as saying that the Aicardi boys have a history of violence.
Police arrived and the dispatch sheet obtained by the I-Team shows they detained Sacred Heart graduates Brian Dwyer, Marino Peradotto, James Aicardi and Michael Aicardi.
I cant believe how out of hand this actually got. What people didnt hear is that it all started over a beer can. And that the Yale students are the ones who started the fight, saying that there were more of them than Aicardi and his friends. That is when Aircardi called his friends because he was threatened.