“Officer Kevin Kelly, 24, [somewhere in the photo above] was cited by San Francisco police and released for allegedly showing a gun to a server in an attempt to impress her about 2:40 a.m. Sunday at the 24-hour IHOP Restaurant at 2299 Lombard St. in the city’s Marina District,” sfgate.com reports, stuffing as much fail as possible into a single sentence. Unfortunately, a single sentence just isn’t enough to git ‘er done . . .
Apparently, a young lady he was talking to, it appeared that he was trying to impress her by letting her know he was a police officer,” said San Francisco police Sgt. Eric O’Neal, a department spokesman. “He brandished a gun. He briefly pointed it in her direction and he pointed the weapon in an upward position, pointing it at the ceiling of the restaurant. That caused the young lady some concern, enough to call SFPD officers.”
I reckon the only reason you’re reading any of this is because Officer Kelly was an Oakland PD cop on San Francisco PD territory. If, for example, Officer Kevin Kelly had decided to impress the IHOP waitrode at 2:40 a.m. in Oakland, the responding officers would have smoothed over the waitstaff’s annoyance at having a gun “briefly pointed” in her direction by an inebriated member of their team. Just a thought.
Here’s another one: brandishing is only brandishing if you’re being mean about it. And working for the police means never having to take a breathalyzer test unless the responding officers can’t possibly avoid it.
Kelly, a Marine Corps veteran, told officers that he had been drinking Saturday night. “It was unknown what level of consumption the off-duty officer had,” O’Neal said.
San Francisco police seized Kelly’s gun, which was not issued by Oakland police, as evidence, O’Neal said.
Kelly’s attorney, Harry Stern, said Friday, “Based on the facts that I know, it sounds like a youthful indiscretion. I don’t see how, under any stretch of the imagination, the crime of brandishing has been committed, which requires the weapon to be displayed in an angry, threatening manner.”
Do I need to say it? If a non-LEO civilian had been the one doing the gun waving thing the cops would have come down on him like a proverbial ton of bricks. Kelly? Not so much.
“Kelly is on paid administrative leave, said Officer Johnna Watson, an Oakland police spokeswoman, pending investigations by San Francisco police and Oakland police internal affairs.
Kelly is one of 38 officers who graduated in March 2013 from the department’s first academy in four years. Kelly’s father, Jim Kelly, is a San Francisco police inspector who pinned his son’s badge at a ceremony at the Scottish Rite Temple near Oakland’s Lake Merritt.
I’m so glad reporter Henry K. Lee added that bit at the end. Otherwise I would think Officer Kelly was a FLAME DELETED who needed immediate suspension, along with any brother officer who tried to cover his tracks.