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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1992-09-10
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THE WEEK, Page 18NATIONNo Way to Fix an Image
San Francisco's top cop gets chopped for free-lance censorship
Cops should have skins thicker than an elephant's hide. After
all, each day they confront life's most horrible scenery, from
murder to mayhem. But San Francisco police chief Richard
Hongisto's thin skin got him canned last week because he
allegedly couldn't stand the sight of a gay newspaper that
blasted his handling of the protests that erupted in San
Francisco following the Rodney King verdict in the suburbs of
Los Angeles. So he reportedly ordered some officers to strip
them off the racks.
The San Francisco Bay Times, which serves the Bay Area's
gay and lesbian community, ran a cover showing Hongisto in a
doctored photograph grasping a nightstick in a lewd fashion. The
headline read, DICK'S COOL NEW TOOL: MARTIAL LAW. The article
slammed Hongisto, a sympathetic veteran of the city's Flower
Power demonstrations in the 1960s, who three weeks ago ordered
massive police sweeps that resulted in more than 1,700 arrests.
The show of force enraged liberals and inspired the Bay Times
story. Hongisto, appointed by Mayor Frank Jordan only six weeks
ago, denies ordering his cops to remove the offending newspapers
from display. But according to an unidentified source quoted in
the San Francisco Chronicle, the chief told a vice-squad
officer, "Let's say a bunch of cops from the Mission went out
and cleared out these racks. Then no one would be upset."
When the mayor (a former police chief) heard about
Hongisto's response, he ordered a police investigation. It led
to the return of more than 2,100 copies of the paper after
investigators seized them in a police officer's basement. The
police commission then fired the chief.