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Posted: 8/5/2005 3:54:25 AM EDT
San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong is about 5' 6" and under 100 pounds. She was an officer on special duties and has never busted a person as a cop on the street in her entire career. Her new grading system for the Lieutenants test, disregards exam test results to promote diversity in the upper ranks.


Heather Fong



Police make the grade at the Hall of Justice
By J.K. Dineen
Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, August 3, 2005 11:08 PM PDT
E-mail this story | Print this page


For 150 city inspectors and sergeants, the writing was finally on the wall Wednesday afternoon.

At about 3:55 p.m., officers milled outside Room 575 at the Hall of Justice, where the results of the first lieutenants exam in four years were about to be tacked up in a glass-enclosed bulletin board.

The posting of the test scores kicked off the controversial and often legally challenged process of picking the new batch of lieutenants, who earn a base salary of $100,000 a year and provide the bulk of the department's day-to-day, on-the-street supervision.


On Monday, despite objections from the police union, the Civil Service Commission adopted new, more flexible rules for promotions to lieutenant in a bid to encourage diversity in the department's upper ranks. The new system downplays the importance of test results after the first 14 selections are made and gives SFPD Chief Heather Fong the option to consider anyone within the top 129.

On Wednesday, test-takers awaiting their results said they had done their best — the rest was up to the chief.

"All I know is the chief will decide," said Sgt. Ed Santos of Internal Affairs, who placed 32nd. "All I can do is sit back and wait." He called the whole process



"grueling."

"I don't think it's the best way to measure leadership qualities," he added.

Robbery Inspector Dan Gardner, who placed 12th, said he studied for several months for the written and oral test, which took place on two days in November and January.



"I'm just glad to see the scores finally out," he said. "Now it's completely up to [Fong]. That's the system we live by and it's fine with me."

The first to arrive at Wednesday's unveiling was Sgt. Rich Pate of Bayview Station. Two days a week over the course of a year, Pate studied with three other sergeants. The diligence paid off: Pate ranked No. 11 and one of his fellow students, Sgt. Dave Smith of Northern Station, placed second.

Pate got out his cell phone and called Smith.



"Hey Dave, are you sitting down? I'm here looking at the test results — you're No. two," he said. "I'm serious, we're talking second place."

Pate hung up.

"He doesn't believe me," he said.

Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes said the union would prefer "rank-order appointments, going down the list," said Delagnes.

"That is the system we believe in," he said.

Delagnes said only about half of the people eligible to take the test did so.

"A whole lot of people didn't take this test because they don't have any faith in the system," he said.

E-mail: [email protected]


Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:03:55 AM EDT
[#1]
$100,000 a year? That is one big-ticket affirmative action program.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:06:47 AM EDT
[#2]
I'm not commenting on this officer.

But, the PC morons would make Osama-Bin-A-PigEater a cop if they could.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:09:57 AM EDT
[#3]
Damn that is a joke, but it is sanfransissy so it's not a suprise.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:10:52 AM EDT
[#4]
Don't blame her, she's just a player in the system. San Fran has a large Chinese community and subsequently, lots of Asian related crime.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:11:01 AM EDT
[#5]


i thought our PD was going down......
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 2:44:20 PM EDT
[#6]

Quoted:
Don't blame her, she's just a player in the system. San Fran has a large Chinese community and subsequently, lots of Asian related crime.



Oakland and SF have a large Chinese community, but I could name at least a half dozen chinese cops from Oakland or SFPD that would be a better choice... and I'm not even a cop.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 2:57:39 PM EDT
[#7]
The got a chick for the fire chief as well.  She was promoted from a "specical service" unit just like the police chief.  
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 2:58:05 PM EDT
[#8]
San Francisco's insane.  Their school district was upset that the heavily Asian schools had much better test scores than the heavily hispanic and black schools (shocking, I know).  Their solution?  Bus a lot of Asian kids across town and force them to attend black-heavy schools so the Asian kids would push up the averages, but they explained it as saying schools were not diverse enough and diversity is an educational quality all its own.  The Asian parents told the school district to FOAD.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 2:59:01 PM EDT
[#9]
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:00:06 PM EDT
[#10]
SFPD also has one of the poorest records at solving homicides in the nation.

A couple of years ago they were actively recruiting gays. I understand it is illegal to do it the way they did it, but they were quoted on television saying they only wanted to hire homosexuals on this occasion.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:03:00 PM EDT
[#11]

Quoted:
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.



Especially if she has ketchup with her hotdogs.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:04:58 PM EDT
[#12]
Another stupid, incompetent, affirmative action, minority bitch who will
just steal the taxpayers money while destroying the police department!
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:05:17 PM EDT
[#13]

Quoted:
San Francisco's insane.  Their school district was upset that the heavily Asian schools had much better test scores than the heavily hispanic and black schools (shocking, I know).  Their solution?  Bus a lot of Asian kids across town and force them to attend black-heavy schools so the Asian kids would push up the averages, but they explained it as saying schools were not diverse enough and diversity is an educational quality all its own.  The Asian parents told the school district to FOAD.


Liberals have the craziest solutions, don't they?
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:21:07 PM EDT
[#14]
How the hell can they justify making her Chief? She's never arrested a bad guy? She's Asian, Oh nevermind I got it. Little Bejing. I wonder if San Francisco will be the new capitol after China takes over the U.S.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:24:33 PM EDT
[#15]

Quoted:
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.



+1


WWDHD?


"Ya feelin' lucky, punk?"
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:29:49 PM EDT
[#16]

Quoted:
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.

Dirty Harry would kill everyone currently employed in City Hall.


What Would Dirty Harry Do?
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:32:14 PM EDT
[#17]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.

Dirty Harry would kill everyone currently employed in City Hall.


What Would Dirty Harry Do?



But if they could all shoot like Davis and Sweet, he wouldn't care if the whole damn department was queer.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 3:39:56 PM EDT
[#18]
I was in the city of SF and turned the corner into a giant cloud of pot smoke.  There were about 25-30 people smoking up a storm.  A half block away was a cop, who I pointed torward the pot cloud.

He says "Ain't going to bother.  The DA will just let them go."

Wait a minute.. If I light a cigarette in a bar, you'll arrest me, but you're going to ignore the pot smokers?

"Yup"

San Francisco, the Mos Eisley of America.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:47:39 PM EDT
[#19]
Harry went through the PC bullshit in 1976...

Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:49:20 PM EDT
[#20]

Quoted:
I was in the city of SF and turned the corner into a giant cloud of pot smoke.  There were about 25-30 people smoking up a storm.  A half block away was a cop, who I pointed torward the pot cloud.

He says "Ain't going to bother.  The DA will just let them go."

Wait a minute.. If I light a cigarette in a bar, you'll arrest me, but you're going to ignore the pot smokers?

"Yup"

San Francisco, the Mos Eisley of America.



Wow.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 4:58:35 PM EDT
[#21]

Quoted:


i thought our PD was going down......



<Beavis> He said going down</Beavis>
<Butthead> in a San Francisco thread</Butthead>

hehehehehehehe
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 5:04:08 PM EDT
[#22]

Quoted:
She's Asian, Oh nevermind I got it. Little Bejing. I wonder if San Francisco will be the new capitol after China takes over the U.S.



WTF is this supposed to mean?
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 5:09:38 PM EDT
[#23]
A K-9 dog would make a better cop on the streets than that woman.


Sgtar15
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 5:15:38 PM EDT
[#24]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I was in the city of SF and turned the corner into a giant cloud of pot smoke.  There were about 25-30 people smoking up a storm.  A half block away was a cop, who I pointed torward the pot cloud.

He says "Ain't going to bother.  The DA will just let them go."

Wait a minute.. If I light a cigarette in a bar, you'll arrest me, but you're going to ignore the pot smokers?

"Yup"

San Francisco, the Mos Eisley of America.



Wow.




Do the terms "Barbary Coast", "Emperor Norton", "Carol Doda" ring a bell?  I mean, lets be realistic with the history and culture of San Francisco since the Gold Rush days, law enforcement has got to be a challenge in many ways.

And you guys really can't be all that surprised that the politicians and the department leadership prioritize enforcement patterns and priorities.    I suspect that in any big city where you have the weekly or daily bozos being civilly disobedient (the pot heads, etc) where they would get a citation or tossed or enforcing the latest and greatest ordinances or hot buttons, what do you  think is going to happen?

I mean if they hadn't let Carol Doda and her contemporaries bend the law, most of you guys would sit home Friday and Saturday nights and read.

Link Posted: 8/5/2005 9:39:45 PM EDT
[#25]
It's unfortunate, this type of "promotional advancement" is all too common in both big and medium sized departments across the country.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 9:42:02 PM EDT
[#26]

Quoted:
It's unfortunate, this type of "promotional advancement" is all too common in both big and medium sized departments across the country.



unfortunate?

how about deadly!  These policies are getting cops and people killed!


Sgatr15
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 9:56:27 PM EDT
[#27]
SFPD. A fucking joke. San Francisco is a sespool of human garbage. I am so glad I dont live out there anymore.
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:15:57 PM EDT
[#28]

Quoted:
San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong is about 5' 6" and under 100 pounds. She was an officer on special duties and has never busted a person as a cop on the street in her entire career. Her new grading system for the Lieutenants test, disregards exam test results to promote diversity in the upper ranks.



Glad we finally got our promotion priorities straight
NOW, we'll see some real progress
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:26:42 PM EDT
[#29]
For the folks who like to complain about shitty cops...this is why.

What a fucking disgrace.  I don't understand how you can be a cop and never make an arrest...that's sort of a critical part of FTO.

I guess it's par for the course....the last chief I had at my police department, reffering to the town he'd previously been Chief in, said that his prior jurisdiction didn't have any gang crime.  Hello?  I sat in the Midwest Gang Investigators Association meetings every month and listened to the gang guy from that town lay out gang homicide after gang homicide.  On another note, while Chief in the town with "no gang crime", he prohibited his officer's from entering gang intelligence or hit info into ALERTS and LEADS.

Total douche bag.

I'm really starting to hate people.


10-32
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:32:08 PM EDT
[#30]
Umm...WTH's "special service"?

Fetching coffee and doughnuts?
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:34:26 PM EDT
[#31]

Quoted:
Umm...WTH's "special service"?

Fetching coffee and doughnuts?



Pie
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:41:06 PM EDT
[#32]

Quoted:
Umm...WTH's "special service"?

Fetching coffee and doughnuts?



You know....the touchy-feely crap.  D.A.R.E., G.R.E.A.T...running around in the McGruff the Crime dog suit.  My last department had 120 officers assigned to the patrol division...and 108 in "community service" divisions.  


10-32
Link Posted: 8/5/2005 10:44:30 PM EDT
[#33]
There a police officer in LA that writes occasional articles under the alias "Jack Dunphy".
He's written a lot about this foolishness, and just yesterday wrote that: "There are two kinds of police officers: Those who make arrests, and those who don't.  
Those who don't rise to command positions".

The fact is, MOST big city police officials never actually served as a street cop of any type.
They are in fact, nothing but politicians who happen to wear a gun they've never actually drawn, and who owe their job and continued employment to the Mayor.

This disconnect between senior officials and street cops is largely responsible for a lot of the troubles in most police departments.

One huge advantage most fire departments have is, the Chief of the Department actually spent a good amount of time fighting real fires.

The Chief of the NYFD was killed in the World Trade Center.
30 years on the job, the most senior man in the department, and he was still going up stairs to fires.

This inevitably leads to a situation like in London.  People blown to bloody tatters by terrorists, and the chief police official is babbling on about how the word Islam and terror don't belong in the same sentence, and is persecuting several police officers for making anti-Islamic comments.

Link Posted: 8/6/2005 12:10:17 AM EDT
[#34]

Quoted:
The fact is, MOST big city police officials never actually served as a street cop of any type.
They are in fact, nothing but politicians who happen to wear a gun they've never actually drawn,



In the eighties I learned a similar lesson about Doctors
the one that was the famous one, the head of the high profile depts, the one everyone wanted.......
he was actually not as good as the "second best", the one that was more interested in the patients
than the "status", the one that made sure he took care of the medical problems, not the political ones
Link Posted: 8/6/2005 5:15:52 AM EDT
[#35]
I LOVE that line!

Quoted:

Quoted:
Dirty Harry would not be pleased.



Especially if she has ketchup with her hotdogs. h.gif

Link Posted: 8/6/2005 5:28:45 AM EDT
[#36]
Heather Fong isn't 5'6".  She's more like 5'8" or 5'9".

San Francisco is a horrible city when it comes to law enforcement.  The PD isn't the sharpest but neither is the District Attorney's Office that refuses to prosecute.  The Board of Supervisors is very anti-police as is the leftist media.  The idjits they call citizenry are so stupid and leftist that they deserve not to be policed.
Link Posted: 8/6/2005 5:34:20 AM EDT
[#37]
Anyone remember those ex-SFPD SP-1s that were being sold in SGN?
Link Posted: 8/6/2005 6:05:45 AM EDT
[#38]

Quoted:
For the folks who like to complain about shitty cops...this is why.

What a fucking disgrace.  I don't understand how you can be a cop and never make an arrest...that's sort of a critical part of FTO.

I guess it's par for the course....the last chief I had at my police department, reffering to the town he'd previously been Chief in, said that his prior jurisdiction didn't have any gang crime.  Hello?  I sat in the Midwest Gang Investigators Association meetings every month and listened to the gang guy from that town lay out gang homicide after gang homicide.  On another note, while Chief in the town with "no gang crime", he prohibited his officer's from entering gang intelligence or hit info into ALERTS and LEADS.

Total douche bag.

I'm really starting to hate people.


10-32



If you believe a lie for long enough, it becomes the truth.

And FYI, I'm a "most qualified person for the job" guy.
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