He Fought the Law and the Law Won

In another embarrassing story involving the SFPD, the SFPD decided not to discipline any officers who made a gay man that urinated against a wall mop it up with his hair and his shirt. The reason is that mainly the correct paperwork wasn't filed in enough time and it's past the point anyone could be disciplined. Lovely.

The police did approve a payout of $83,000 to the man, Andrew Marconi, and commissioners expressed frustration with the amount of bureaucratic snares that delayed any sort of discipline to take place. The main problem was that Marconi failed to issue a complaint with the Office of Citizen Complaints. Because he never did, the whole issue didn't go to the proper channels and so nothing was done.

What happened was that on March 7, 2004, Macroni and some friends were visiting from Sacramento and stepped outside the Endup to take a piss. A couple of cops saw this and, according to the lawsuit, said, and we quote: "you peeing on my streets? Do you think we want your AIDS-infected pee on our streets?" They then made Marconi kneel on the ground to examine his piss and then one of the officers slammed his head against the wall and used his hair to mop it up. They then took off Marconi's shirt and used that to clean up the remaining piss. The police only stopped when one of Marconi's friends, a Stockton police officer, came to his rescue. This, again, all according to the lawsuit.

Now, of course, you can pretty much guess that the cops in question deny this whole thing and say Marconi was too drunk to really be reliable. Marconi admits he was a wee bit drunk but there is a witness who can testify that he overheard the cops make their dumb-ass statements.

Marconi sued the SFPD for battery, assault, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional pain.