SF Chronicle Out-Sleuths SF Police Department
The backdrop to the New Year's Eve Yale a cappella brawl is finally taking shape -- and not, apparently, thanks to the police, who have all but botched the investigation. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an absurdly comprehensive* recount on Friday, using eyewitness accounts that "supported the Yale singers' contention this was an attack on them, not a fight."
The story is sprawling, with some key background on the Catholic school rivalry narrative that a few earlier stories have only alluded to. Our favorite detail: instigator Richard Aicardi (the Chron gave him anonymity, but that's him pictured above) arrived at the party wearing a Santa hat -- an unpromising start for a guy who, to say the least, comes off very poorly. A couple of snippets:
One of the Baker's Dozen group, Sharyar Aziz Jr., went to the kitchen to take a beer from the 30-pack the guest had brought and said the guest told him curtly, "That beer is not for you." ...
[Aziz] said the group of young men "was expressing we were a bunch of 'fags' and 'homos' and said they wanted to fight. They were saying, 'We are in the 415' " -- San Francisco's area code -- "and this was their territory. It was like something out of 'West Side Story.' "
Aziz said he told the young men, "There are 18 of us, and there are five or six of you, and we're not going to fight you."
A lawyer for the Aicardis, Frank Passaglia, disputes the media's characterization of the incident thus far:
"There was no attack," he said. "There was nothing planned. There was a lot of alcohol. The Yalies were drinking. Other people were drinking, and it was a mutual combat situation."
Passaglia said he was "really upset about the fact you have a bunch of influential people from back East from a very influential university who have gone out of their way to hire influential lawyers and political people who are exerting a lot of pressure to charge somebody."
"If this had been a party involving African Americans or Hispanics," Passaglia said, "I just don't think this kind of influence would have been exerted on the police and the DA's office, and the press would care less. But because these are Yalies, all of a sudden, it's been distorted."
Food for thought. But you know, if Passaglia wants to see distortions, he should take a look at Aziz's face.
(*but regrettably, does not further the Evan Gogel Bruise Hottie angle)
10 Comments | 
Digg This | 
Share on Facebook | 
Print This Post | 
Email This Post
Read more: crime, Yale
Email – 
Search
About
Report a bug
Archives
RSS Feed
January 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Isn’t it sad, but predictable, that Passaglia needs to pull the class card - AND gratuitously through in racial issues - simply to divert attention from the actual situation itself? If anything, it makes their case look even more desperate.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Yeah, because WE’RE a bunch of influential and arrogant assholes, this case is being mismanaged. It’s not because the toolbox who started the fight is well connected and is escaping being charged by the incompetent SF popo.
January 29th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
sorry…i meant to write “throw”
January 29th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I’ve heard “if it was black/hispanic people [things would go perfectly]” in like 3 different arguments this week and it’s only Monday. What jerk sent out the memo that this makes an argument good?
…and that whole 415, rep your set, throw signs up thing is so bizarre.
RIP to my homie Barbaro!
January 29th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
When did being African American or Hispanic and being a Yalie become things that can’t happen together?
January 30th, 2007 at 2:20 am
The mother of a Yale student wrote the “absurdly comprehensive” account (at least the one you have linked in your article). That hardly seems fair. I’ve heard various accounts of that nights dissipations, and they do not all paint the BD’s in such a flattering light. Word to the 203.
January 30th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Confused Yalie: Did you actually read the article? Much of the information is drawn directly from a police report. Witness:
“”Without warning, the unknown males started to punch and kick Johnston, Aziz and their friends,” according to the police report of Johnston’s account.
The most complete eyewitness account obtained by The Chronicle came from a 12-year-old boy whose father did not want him named.”
January 30th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I’m sorry, but I’ve got to say this…ANYONE who goes to an IL school (or an Amherst, Williams, whatever) and has SEEN a cappella guys KNOWS THEY DIDN’T START THIS FIGHT.
I hate to be the one to have to say it, but they’re not exactly the most masculine set of guys out there. In keeping with the “throw a punch and you’re suspended” mindset that students at elite colleges develop, I have absolutely no doubt that the fruity a cappella guys were genuinely uninterested in fighting a large crowd of SF private school wannabe’s like this pediatrician’s son.
p.s. something tells me if your mommy is a premiere pediatrician and you live in a 4-story house, you’re probably not “reppin’” much of anything…pathetic.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
d05: sad perhaps, but oh so true.
February 3rd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
As a not-so-wealthy Yalie, I know that if my jaw had been busted, my parents would not have been able to hire expensive attorneys to make this a case. I would have flown back and tried to put the incident behind me and the suspects would have gotten off. I think that there is no question that the case has been distorted–when influential and powerful people get slighted like this, they have a sense they feel that their status has been infringed upon, and they retaliate hard in the name of justice. I want to hear the other side of the story–I haven’t seen it in any media, because Aziz Sr. and company got their story out there first and pushed it hard with an expensive legal team and lots of calls to major media.