No Way to Fix an Image

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.