Sure, all we can think about today is the SF Jail Fight Club (first rule of SF Jail Fight Club: Fight, or you get pepper sprayed). But don't forget San Francisco Police Department's own black eye, the racist and homophobic texting scandal, which might have a fifth participant — and terminations coming...soon?
You know the story (and if you don't, here it is): active SFPD officers including Michael Robison, Noel Schwab, Rain Daugherty and Michael Celis exchanged bigoted texts with former cop Ian Furminger, texts that came to light as Furminger fought to put off his jail term after he was convicted of corruption.
The officers were reassigned to non-public-contact positions after the FBI handed over the text messages to the SFPD, and an ongoing investigation revealed that as many as ten other cops might also be involved.
So, given that SFPD Chief Greg Suhr has said that he would "seek nothing less than termination for conduct and character incompatible with being a police officer," what's going to happen to these guys?
First to fall was Robinson (also known as "the gay one") who resigned on March 18 after he "had come under intense pressure after word of his involvement in the texts became public" the Chron reported.
Reporting from Wednesday's Police Commission meeting, Hoodline writes that Suhr says that in total, 14 SFPD staffers "were initially implicated after review of the text messages," and that "five have been reassigned to roles with no public contact."
According to Hoodline, Suhr said at the meeting that an investigation into those five "should be completed next week," and that he “expects to recommend termination” for the officers who exchanged the messages.
A call to SFPD to verify that five active officers, not the four as previously reported, are under scrutiny has not been returned at publication time, nor has our request for the fifth officer's (should one exist) name.
Meanwhile, according to the offices of Public Defender Jeff Adachi and District Attorney George Gascon, the investigation into the nearly 1000 cases involving police work done by the texting officers continues, in an effort to determine how many might have been tainted by a bias against the suspects' race or orientation.
The DA's office is also requesting SFPD records that "will ensure the assessment is conducted thoroughly," Gascon said earlier this month.
"This is a shameful incident," Gascon, who himself was SFPD's chief until January 2011, said, "that the public deserves to have addressed in a meaningful and expeditious manner."
Read all SFist coverage of the SFPD racist text scandal here.