Outrage

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007 - 12:05 a.m.

It's COLD tonight here. But wait! How can that BE? We're about to melt and fall into the ocean due to GLOBAL WARMING!

San Francisco CANNOT BE COLD, or else that means our pseudo-science will be PROVEN WRONG!

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Two people I'm tired of: Rosie and Donald.

They both need to shut their traps now and leave one another alone.

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Here's something that happened here while I was out of town. The italics have been added by me, for emphasis:

Members of an all-male singing group from Yale University say they were taunted with anti-gay slurs, attacked and beaten after singing "The Star Spangled Banner" at a New Year's Eve party in San Francisco.

At least three members of The Baker's Dozen a cappella group were hurt. One suffered a broken jaw.

No arrests have been made. Police said they are investigating.

The trouble started when a couple of partygoers began mocking the 16 student singers � who wore sports jackets and ties � as preppies, witnesses said.

" 'You're not welcome here,' " Sharyar Aziz Jr., an 18-year-old Baker's Dozen member whose jaw was broken, quoted one partygoer as saying. "He called a few members of the group, whether it was fag or homo, very, I would say, juvenile taunting."

Reno Rapagnani, a retired San Francisco police officer whose daughter hosted the event, shut down the party. As the singers headed back to a nearby home where they were staying, another group of young men got out of a van and jumped them, according to Rapagnani.

"They were surrounded, then tripped � and when they were on the ground, they were kicked," Rapagnani said.

Two other Yale students needed medical treatment following the fight, one for a concussion and the other for cuts and a swollen ankle.

Police said they arrived and found about 20 people fighting in the street. They interviewed some of the participants but let them go after taking their names.

Let's look at that last sentence again.

They interviewed some of the participants but let them go after taking their names.

Well. That's nice. So, basically those people who inflicted the beatings are still running loose.

Frankly -- I am not surprised. Read on. Here are excerpts from the most recent update to this story:

Jan. 10 - KGO - There are new complaints that the San Francisco Police Department is mishandling the New Year's Eve attack on a Yale University singing group. Several of the young men went to the hospital with serious injuries. The I-Team first broke this story Monday.

There are questions about how police handled the case that night and how they're handling it today. This is blowing up into a national controversy about how San Francisco treated the best and brightest from Yale. . . . 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. They apparently did not detain their brother, Rich Aicardi. Police let all the suspects go.

Dean Johnson, ABC7 Legal Analyst: "Police can arrest anytime that they believe have probably cause to believe a felony was committed."

Former San Mateo County prosecutor and ABC7 legal analyst, Dean Johnson, explains. "They should have let the suspects sit in jail overnight and if these suspects are entitled to bail, if they're essentially good kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, if they have no records, if they're no danger to society, the judge on the afternoon arraignment calendar can sort all of that out later."

It especially troubles Johnson that the police failed to take photographs of the injuries. The couple who owned the home where the party took place took pictures. And it bothers him that police failed to interview the victims.

Now, 10 days later, investigators are demanding that the young men pay their way back to San Francisco to be interviewed. One investigator told a parent, "the kids are affluent, so they can afford it." The Baker's Dozen's attorney says it's ridiculous.

Whitney Leigh, Gonzalez & Leigh Law Firm: "The notion that the police should now put the burden on the families or on these kids to fly back to San Francisco, a place they're now afraid to come to frankly, doesn't seem to make any sense to me."

Also today, a development that the police and mayor's office may not welcome -- former San Francisco prosecutor Jim Hammer has joined the team of attorneys for The Baker's Dozen.

Whitney Leigh: "He's got such great detailed expertise and knowledge, particularly about how the San Francisco criminal justice system is supposed to work."

We caught up to Chief Heather Fong this evening outside the police commission meeting. She defended her officers not arresting the suspects the night of the attack.

Heather Fong, SFPD Chief: "When they detained them, they identified those individuals, and when the officers tried to get information as to specifically what did the individuals do, where were the injuries, if there were injuries, there were no individuals who provided additional information."

But members of The Baker's Dozen tell the I-Team they did identify the suspects and were available just a few doors down the street and that the police knew that.

Okay.

I've been doing a little reading about the San Francisco Police Department.

Their rate of success when getting convictions for crimes is less than twenty-five percent.

And in fact, I've dealt with them directly. When I went to them with my story of being a victim of mail fraud, celebrity impersonation, and psychological abuse, the gentleman behind the desk turned it into a story of an Internet Romance Gone Astray, told me to tell the person to stay away from me, and that if he showed up anyway and tried to kill or abuse me, THEN call them.

In other words, valid and provable crimes were committed against me, and yet this assbiscuit parked at the front desk who was busy cleaning his fingernails downplayed it so he wouldn't have to interrupt his precious manicure and spend the afternoon taking a crime report and filling out his fives.

As to the specifics of the Baker's Dozen case -- my opinion is that this case should result in the termination of all officers involved in the negligent reporting of the incident, and a thorough investigation as to how many other times they have closed rank and downplayed any problems that have arisen regarding families of current and former officers.

When the lawmen consider themselves above the law -- that's a BIG motherfucking problem.

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Anyway, that's enough. I will keep on top of this.

Have a good Thursday.

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