Looks like San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his police chief Heather Fong realized they'd made idiots of themselves. The city cops who'd been suspended in connection with some prank videos they made are now back on duty, although some have regrettably been re-assigned to pushing paper, instead of actually policing.

The blowback came fast and strong against Newsom and Fong, who claimed to be outraged at the supposedly non-PC insensitivity of the Bayview station cop videos. Orginally made to liven up a planned officers Christmas party, they ended up on one cop's personal Web site, and then became public. As SF Chron columnist Debra Saunders noted early on in the flap, last week, the real targets in the satirical footage - if anybody - were the cops themselves. Each day this week, Newsom and Fong walked their overheated response back a bit farther. They can lay entirely to rest this sad story of pandering to identity-politics lobbies just one way; put all the officers back in their previous posts.

Now, about all those unsolved murders........

TECHNORATI TAGS: SAN FRANCISCO, POLICE, PRANK VIDEOS, SUSPENSIONS, GAVIN NEWSOM, HEATHER FONG

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at December 16, 2005 02:00 PM

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