Page "Richard Hongisto" Paragraph 12

Soon thereafter, a gay and lesbian community newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Times, published a cover graphic of Hongisto's head pasted on the body of a lesbian activist.

The activist was dressed in a police uniform and held a giant baton near the belt line, the headline screaming " Dick's Cool New Tool: Martial Law ", in reference to the police actions.

What happened afterwards is subject to dispute.

Hongisto claimed that he had asked members of the police union to gather copies of the paper to show members of the rank and file what he was enduring in the activist press, in reaction to their criticism of his supposedly failing to properly defend their conduct of the arrests during the King riots.

Around 2, 000 copies of the free papers were taken from news racks by three officers and later found stored at the Mission District police station.

Hongisto was publicly accused of ordering the confiscation of the papers in attempt at censorship, a charge he continued to deny up to his death.

After a hearing, which many considered to be highly politicized, the San Francisco Police Commission found him culpable, and Mayor Jordan dismissed him.

One of those three officers, Gary Delagnes, is now president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association.