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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Jeffrey Toobin discusses police corruption
The Bus Stop Saloon, in San Francisco, has pool tables, a pair of video-golf machines, more than half a dozen televisions, and free popcorn. It also has a prime corner location on Union Street, where its awning boasts of a "place where friendships are formed to last a lifetime." The Bus Stop hardly has the look of a city landmark, like the Golden Gate Bridge or the City Lights Bookstore. Yet, over the past several months, the cheerful bar has become just that. It has entered local lore as the focal point of a peculiar law-enforcement scandal, one that has, in varying degrees, engulfed the city's mayor, Willie Brown, its police chief, and its district attorney. Even by the baroque standards of San Francisco, the scandal has from the start laid oddity upon oddity.
On the night of November 19, 2002, about a hundred police officers gathered at the House of Prime Rib, on the fringes of downtown, to celebrate the promotion of Alex Fagan, Sr., to assistant chief of the department. After the dinner, which ended around midnight, several officers decided to continue the festivities at the Bus Stop, which is about ten blocks away. Some of the cops apparently made the short trip in drag-race-style competitions with one another. Three young officers--Matthew Tonsing, David Lee, and Alex Fagan, Jr., the son of the assistant chief--travelled to the Bus Stop together. The trio remained there until closing time, 2 a.m., and then they lingered on the sidewalk out front.
Meanwhile, about a hundred yards away on Union Street, the Blue Light, a smaller bar once owned by the singer Boz Scaggs, was closing, too. A twenty-five-year-old man named Jade Santoro, who had earlier been drinking at the Bus Stop, had then gone to the Blue Light, where his friend Adam Snyder was the bartender. Unlike the Bus Stop, the Blue Light serves food, and Snyder had just presided over Taco Tuesday. As Snyder later testified before a grand jury, he ordered steak fajitas. The kitchen closed before the bar, so, when Snyder finally got around to leaving, his food had been waiting for some time. "The fajitas were cold, I take it?" Snyder was asked by the prosecutor.
"At that point, yes."
"But they were going home with you?"
"The life of a bartender," Snyder replied.
Santoro helped Snyder shut down the Blue Light, and they walked toward Santoro's car, which took them past the Bus Stop. There they ran into the three cops, who were drinking beer on the sidewalk. One of the officers noticed Snyder's package, and said, "Give me your food." The bartender refused to surrender his fajitas. Santoro stood up for his friend, saying, "It is his food. Just leave him alone." More words were exchanged, and the officers started pummelling the two men, especially Santoro, who emerged with a broken nose, a concussion, and cuts and abrasions on his face, arms, and legs. Snyder called 911. In his testimony, Snyder said, "I went and picked up my fajitas that had slid over to the side of the street, and at that point it was kind of a lost cause, so I threw them away." By then, the police had arrived, and Fajitagate began in earnest.
San Franciscans have dissected these events with great care, and, in this restaurant-obsessed city, it is probably not surprising that the following question arose: Why would someone who had just eaten at the House of Prime Rib, which is known for its large portions, crave more food only a few hours later?
Alex Fagan, Jr., who was twenty-three and a rookie with the department, had missed most of the dinner for his father. When he finally showed up, he wasn't dressed for a celebration--he wore a shirt, Levi's, and "thongs or shower shoes," according to grand-jury testimony. The younger Fagan seems to have spent much of the night drinking instead of eating. Even before the Bus Stop incident, he had a dubious record as a cop. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, over a thirteen-month period Fagan had used force in sixteen encounters with suspects, sending six to the hospital.
In this respect, Fagan, Jr., reflected one part of the history of the San Francisco Police Department. "It's generally a very benign police department," Peter Keane, the dean of the Golden Gate University School...
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