Cop Who Called Gascón a 'Media Whore' in SF Weekly Gets Slap on the Wrist

The final fall-out.

​So it turns out that calling your boss a "media whore" in the San Francisco Police Department  doesn't get you suspended, but it does get you slapped on the wrist.

Sassy.

Sgt. Carl T. -- yes, that's his real name -- has received notice that he's gotten a disciplinary reprimand for criticizing the department for staging a car thief sting for the reality TV show Bait Car in the January SF Weekly story. Among other things, Carl T. said, "Everyone has their price and everyone can be pimped out -- including cops" in reference to the overtime and bait cars the cops received for being on the show. He infamously called former police Chief George Gascón a "media whore."

As Sgt. Simon Kim of internal affairs told us, the "media whore" bit "didn't go over too well with the command staff."
What does a reprimand mean? Not much, Carl T. tells us. It's more or less a note of an instance of "conduct unbecoming of an officer" in his employee file.

"Not a big deal," Carl T. says.

Does he regret talking to the press? "No. Not at all. Their reprimand is just to tell me to knock it off. I won't knock it off, I'll just be a little more selective about what I say."

Carl T. says he got the news from Central Station Captain Stephen Tacchini yesterday. He says its not the first time he's gotten in trouble for minor incidents from the department. Carl T. said he once failed to go to the shooting range to requalify his shooting skills, as officers are required to do every six months. Several years ago, he got another one for a practical joke gone "completely sideways," after he issued a parking ticket to the friend of the then-captain of his station. "I just put a ticket on his car, and randomly picked a female officer's name and put it on the ticket."

Carl T. still doesn't know for sure who reported him about his comments in the Weekly. Carl T. had guessed it was Gascón's former second-in-command Jeffrey Godown -- or "Gascon's lapdog" as Carl T. puts it. But Godown denied that to the SF Weekly.

"It was Godown that pointed the finger back at Gascón, so it was either Gascón or one of his lackeys," he said.

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