SFist recieved two missives from Officer Andrew Cohen, who is best known for being the focal point of the so-called "VideoGate" scandal. As with his responses in our recent interview with him, we believe that this "Call to Arms" raises some very thought-provoking points and offers further candid insight into the imbroglio. Also attached below is a letter to his union's journal, in which he criticizes the union for its non-support:

Call to Arms!

Calling all citizens and other parties of interest, I, Officer Andrew Cohen hereby request that you get your pens, quills, pencils, computers or any other writing instrument that you prefer and take the time to write to the Mayor of San Francisco, His Honor Gavin Newsom, as well as to Chief Heather Fong and let them hear your voice as it may pertain to the political scandal known as “VideoGate”!

This charade has gone on long enough, and now we are letting them know that we are sick and tired of their games and political misappropriation of tax payer’s money. We are being held as political hostages and you are being lied to by the “Powers-that-be”.

It has been said time and time again that this video that Gavin denounced as “racist, sexist and homophobic” has no merit and this can and will be proved once given the proper forum to showcase it. You will soon realize that we have been used as political pawns. As you, the tax payers find out that your hard earned dollars are being wastefully spent on their tireless attempts to cast us out when, in fact, we did nothing wrong. As the dollar amount continues to rise and the streets get overcome by violence, we are wasting away pushing paper. This is no way to treat highly qualified and seasoned police officers who participated in a silly comedy video. Just the cost to replace us will be relatively astronomical, and it will take much money, time and effort to find and train these recruits.

For all of the citizens who actually believe what the Mayor and Chief said about this video or about the officers involved, I say don’t! Would it surprise you if I told you that the amount of On-Duty time that was spent on this video, in its entirety is about equivalent to a single, long lunch break! It is time to let your voices be heard and tell these corrupt politicos to stop this mess before it costs the city even more money than has already been wasted. It’s only gonna get uglier as we move forward, and we will not stop fighting until we are completely vindicated of the frivolous charges against us.

Stay tuned -- I will be presenting to you the actual, or close to actual, costs associated with this video debacle . . .It may take me a little while to crunch these numbers, but I can guarantee you that you better be sitting down when you read them . . .

When Cohen arrives at his cost conclusions, we'll definitely share them with SFist's readers, assuming he sends them to us. In the meantime, your thoughts on the situation -- agree, disagree, whatever -- are, as always, more than welcome. The letter that Officer Cohen submitted to his union journal follows:

Exoneration or Termination!

I believe the adage goes “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything”.

In the past year and a half I have gone through many stages of my personal fight with the SFPD Administration, MCD and the Mayor’s office. From the onset I was told directly and indirectly to “shut the f--- up” from different factions of this department as well as a few jabs from the community, although it seems that the public in general has been quite supportive. As time has gone by and the fight has continued in its ever increasingly heated state, it seems that the hecklers have come around to our side and now I am hearing “keep up the fight”, and “don’t let them shut you up”; quite a turnaround.

Although many battles require stamina and perseverance, we are prepared to stay the course and we shall be relentless until we prevail. This department has a history of corrupt behavior and screwing over their detractors, most of whom end up begging for mercy with their tail between their legs and accepting anything in lieu of termination. We are not so easily swayed. Why should we? We are not guilty of the accusations brought upon us. Ironically, in the Administrations attempts to find wrong doing in our little comedy video, they in turn violated many of our Civil Rights, Police Officer rights, General Orders and perhaps even a Penal Code or two along the way. It is this Administration who should be facing the Police Commission, not us.

“United we stand, divided we fall”. This is another appropriate cliché, for this department, let alone this city, isn’t prepared to fight against a united front. Power in numbers is how we prevail as police officers while out on the streets, and there is no reason to believe that this concept wouldn’t work in a battle against “City Hall”.

As the truth continues to unfurl and the responsible parties are brought forward, they will be held to answer. When this fight is over, a small batch of us are going to be able to say that we fought ‘em, and we fought ‘em on our own. Makes one wonder why we have the unions in the first place.

To quote Gary Delagnes (The President of the Police union) from a recent interview with Dan Noyes, “. . . Drew is just trying to keep this thing alive . . . ”. My response to that is:

1) Somebody has to stand up to these thugs. Apparently you and your comrades would rather make some sort of deal to clean up the mess -that you helped make- , rather than fight back for what is right. What is it exactly that the POA does for its members again?

2) If I hadn’t kept this fight in the media, which is the equivalent of kryptonite to this Administration, we wouldn’t have won our first victory in the Appellate court, and we wouldn’t have gained as much support as we have now.

3) You won’t shut me up until we are exonerated!

The ironic thing is that IF the POA had done the right thing, and had supported me in the way of representation, which is their duty and my right, you can pretty well bet that none of us would be looking at getting our (illegal) suspensions overturned . . . ever. In fact, the POA hasn’t done anything worthwhile in our attempts to fight back for this corrupt behavior exercised by the Admin. Moreover, they currently appear to be scratching their heads and trying to negotiate “deals” for us, when we are continually demanding exoneration. That word does not coincide with the word “deal”.

Did you all hear that? We are not going to make a “deal”. We are innocent, and they are wrong and corrupt!

NO DEAL!
EXONERATION OR TERMINTATION!

What is wrong with the people in power in this city? When are you going to concede? The longer you drag this thing out, the more we are going to ramp up and flex. In the end there are only two remedies: exonerate or terminate. If you attempt to do the latter, you are going to cost the tax payers a lot more money. You are going to have to hire even more cops to replace us. You are going to have to explain your decision to the higher courts, the media and the public, and, in the end, just like with the appellate decision that pissed so many of you off, you are going to lose, be ordered to reinstate us, and pay us for all of the lost wages. Why? Because we are innocent and we intend to prove it!

In the mean time, we will be relentless! We will be ruthless! We will leave no stone unturned in regards to all of the mistreatment done to us, and we will bring forth any and all charges against anybody and everybody who is culpable. This department has never seen the likes of what we are prepared to launch, and I have been true to my word on all of my promises thus far.

The good shall prevail and the mighty shall fall.

Oro en Paz, Fierro en Guerra!

-Officer Andrew Cohen
From The Depth of Hell

SFist readers -- what say you?