“San Francisco- On the heels of troubling allegations of evidence tampering against a former San Francisco Police Department Crime Lab technician, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that his office will provide a team of specialists to assist in a thorough independent audit of the laboratory.
“My office will assist San Francisco police to get to the bottom of these serious evidence-tampering allegations,”Brown said. “It’s critical that we act immediately to get the San Francisco crime lab back in service and restore the public’s trust in our criminal justice system.”
At the request of San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon, crime specialists from Brown’s office will assist San Francisco authorities in re-testing of evidence, improving internal controls and taking whatever steps are necessary to return the lab to full operation.
Today’s announcement follows allegations that Deborah Madden, 60, a former San Francisco Police Department Lab technician, jeopardized numerous criminal cases by tampering with police evidence.
The San Francisco Police Department will continue to lead the criminal investigation into Ms. Madden’s conduct.
The new idea is having two staging areas for floats to enter the race – at the beginning in eastern SoMA and at Civic Center. Deets below.
These mariners will need a place to sail their float again in 2010:
Oh, whoops, they abandoned their stripper pole-equipped vessel in the Golden Gate Park Panhandle last year. Oh well.
Bay to Breakers Update
The 99th Bay to Breakers will be run on Sunday, May 16th. Last year’s race saw a significant reduction in problems and impacts on the neighborhood, although there is still more work to do be done. Plans are still being developed for how floats will participate this year. Race organizers initially proposed having all floats start on Divisadero; however, this raised concerns with both neighbors and with float advocates. Supervisor Mirkarimi organized a meeting with the race organizers, the Mayor’s office, float advocates, and neighborhood representatives. We are still waiting to hear the organizers’ revised plan, but they have indicated that they now plan to have two staging areas for floats: at the beginning of the race and at Civic Center.
We are encouraged to hear that the organizers plan to adopt Supervisor Mirkarimi’s suggestion to implement a registration system for floats. This will generate additional revenue to pay for the impacts of the floats, and also create a new level of accountability for floats that are abandoned on the streets. Despite the improvements last year, the impact on the Panhandle area was still unacceptable. Supervisor Mirkarimi remains committed to changing the practice of floats celebrating in the Panhandle for hours after the race has passed. Ross continues to encourage the race organizers to provide an end-point for floats in Golden Gate Park. He believes creating an event in the Park that encourages floats not to stop in the Panhandle will significantly reduce the impact on the neighborhood.
Take a look for yourself to see dude just drive off the Bay Bridge due to a moment’s inattention in last night’s episode of NBC’s Trauma serial. (Do you think you’d survive after falling so far inside a Jeep Cherokee Classic? I don’t think it’d be possible, but maybe the breast implants inside the car softened the jolt or something.)
“The problem started at 9 p.m., with the previously sorta-canceled “Trauma” (1.4/3) returning from the grave as a Nielsen zombie. It hit its lowest rating yet, falling 22 percent from its fall average and 13 percent from its last original. It wouldn’t be shocking if NBC decided to quickly replace “Trauma” in the timeslot. That’s because “Trauma” tainted “L&O,” which managed a third-place 1.5/4 at 10 p.m. — down 25 percent from last week, when NBC aired a double dose of the drama from 9-11 p.m. Worse, “L&O” was actually off 6 percent from what “The Jay Leno Show” had been averaging at 10 p.m. Mondays.
“NBC — which actually did quite well last week, given the fact that it had to fill 5 hours of primetime post-Jay– does not want to see any negative Leno-to-scripted comparisons at 10 p.m. Period.”
Not saying I would or could do a better job, but maybe the whole concept of shooting this kind of old-school TV show on location on the Streets of San Francisco was a bad idea? Is that possible?
On It Goes. How much longer will this Great San Francisco Nielsen Zombie last?
What makes San Francisco’s monthly Critical Mass an illegal bicycle parade is the fact that nobody gets permits. ‘Cause getting a permit is hard - it would entail doing stuff that costs a lot of money and it would make you a magnet for lawsuits, so who needs that, right?
I’ll tell you, the biggest shock that drivers have when they get stuck at an intersection is that they get no sympathy from the cops.Drivers without criminal records tend to stay by their cars and watch the parade of bikes.
OTOH, drivers with criminal records, well, Critical Mass is a test of their ability to maintain. Some fail.
Do I think San Francisco has the will to kill Critical Mass? No. But do I think Police Chief George Gascon is planning on shaking things up, in the coming months, you know, when rain no longer threatens* and the number of cyclists is bigger? Yes.
Am I missing something here? Is there some reason why the SFPD shouldn’t have CED’s? Our Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol have access to TASERS when they’re on the job in SF, so why not the police?
“I’m going to wear a powder blue fucking suit, and a white shirt and a red tie and a fucking breast cancer pin…”
Comes now the fight loser “Michael” (who appears to be on a first-name-only basis with DJ “JV“):
“First of all, I’d like to aPOlogize to AC Transit…”
It goes on and on, Black History Month, 5150, bygones, veterans, arthritis, murder, parole, apologies, brothers, stolen money, leaking, ass kicking, Strike Force(?) Showtime TV, 10,000 kids, cocaine - it goes on and on.
Can’t remember which morning-zoo / dawg-pound joint this screengrab came from. Oh yes, it was from WILD 94.9 FM:
[UPDATE: Word on the street is that, for 2010, floats will be confined the 1.2 mile stretch betwixt Divisidero Street and Arguello Boulevard. Is that a fact? No se, hermana/o. And people, use your words - this new rule ruins B2B because....]
“Even with an organization of more than 25,000 members built in just a couple of weeks in 2009 to fight AEG’s bans and preserve the traditions of the race, AEG did not approach CPBB or any of its officers to discuss the new 2010 restrictions prior to their announcement. AEG did not approach Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s office or the Board of Supervisors to discuss the new 2010 restrictions. AEG did not approach Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office to discuss the new 2010 restrictions. AEG did not approach the North of Panhandle Neighborhood Association to discuss staging floats in their neighborhood instead of at the start of the race.”
All right. Spokesman Sam Singer is saying that the rules will be the same as last year, except for the float starting point. Actually, I thought people were mad in 2009 when they were required to start their floats down in the SoMA starting area. Oh well. Won’t this all get worked out when the permits get issued, and during the ISCOTT hearing ’n stuff? I mean the Third Sunday in May is three months away, right?
Haven’t run this photo in two or three months, or something. Click to expand:
Maybe changing the float starting point is a bad idea, I don’t know. There are pluses and minuseses.
This change wouldn’t seem to be enough to be able to “destroy” the B2B race though…
Now-famous 62-year-old Bay Arean Thomas Bruso (akaEpic Beard Man, Tom Swift, and Tom Vietnam) picks fights as he rides AC Transit in the East Bay, of course, (incident video now available in high def) but he also has been known to take BART to visit San Francisco from time to time. For example, here he is near Market Street back when he was just 48, as seen by Caliber photographer Troy Holden:
“Back in 1996, I was working at the intersection of 2nd & Market. Each and every day the man pictured above would walk by my shop, wave a loaf of sourdough in my face, and scream obscenities about the San Francisco 49′ers.”
Let’s find out, courtesy of footage of Tom at an Oakland A’s game last year. Is this a proper use of a Taser? I don’t know. It ended up being a time-saver for the cops, certainly. Would they have felt justified in shooting Tom with bullets at that moment? Obviously not. The question after any Taser discharge is what would you have done if you didn’t have the Taser, right?
Speaking of Tasers and the East Bay, check out this excellent report from Demian Bulwa about how the BART Police Department ran the initial stages of its Taser program.
That’s a poorly-run operation. What about the California Highway Patrol? They seem to do be doing better with Tasers these days. For them, a Taser is just another arrow in the quiver. Check it, a CHP officer on San Francisco’s Octavia Boulevard with his two primary weapons, a Smith & Wesson Model 4006 semi-automatic and a TASER International X26:
So why shouldn’t the SFPD have Tasers? We already trust them with handguns and assault rifles, right? We’ll end up with a few more lawsuits but with fewer dead civilians. Sounds like a win, overall.
And finally, let’s hear from the RAND Coporation. They pondered the use of Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) for the NYPD and had this to say:
“Our key less-than-lethal force recommendations:
We reviewed reports of about 455 NYPD shootings from 2004 to 2006 and identified 25 cases where we judged that had a less-lethal weapon been available, officers may have used it to subdue suspects instead of using their handguns.
We also note that when other departments have deployed Conducted Energy Devices or CEDs, commonly known by the brand name TASER, injuries to both suspects and officers have declined.
We recognize that some groups have criticized the deployment of CEDs, raising issues of safety, overuse, and misuse. As such we recommend that the NYPD undertake a pilot program for the deployment of CEDs.
Such a program should allow patrol officers in selected precincts to be trained and equipped with CEDs that can incapacitate suspects from a distance. We believe there is evidence that if NYPD officers had access to this device, some number of officer-involved shootings could be avoided, and injuries to both suspects and police officers will decline. A carefully designed pilot program conducted over six to 12 months in a few select precincts would give the department enough information to determine whether the devices would alter the way the NYPD officers apply force and whether the weapons could be used properly.”
“The characters weren’t developed properly at first.
We took a lot of creative license, but learned from it.
We listened to the audience and to critics, and were able to satisfy a lot of complaints about the characters.
We improved the humor and the action on the front line.”
It’s almost like they’re shooting a whole new show! Good on you, Rabbit. Remember how excited people were when gorgeous Jennifer Siebel Newsom was in the pilot episode? Maybe we can get some of that back.
NBC/Universal
Now, while we’re remembering last autumn, wasn’t that the time when co-star Aimee Garcia was spinning this tale?
“The actors, who have all moved to rented apartments to be closer to work, are now talking about buying homes, Garcia said.”
O.K., hold on to that one. Now, try this on for size, per a recent interview with Cliff Curtis:
Shooting for, what shall we call it, Trauma II: This Time We Mean Itmoves to the East Bay tomorrow. Actually, they were looking for extras with Pakistani heritage just the other day. But keep in mind that when you’re an extra working on Treasure Island you get paid $1.79 more per hour than when you’re an extra working in Oakland. Why? It all has to do with the minimum wage. Anyway, you might be too late for this, but there could be other gigs coming up:
