We've never understood this phenomenon of encouraging disgruntled employees to film skits to screen before the whole office to "boost morale." The last time we were forced to do this, we filmed a Blair Witch video where we "discovered" all the employees who'd quit over the last six months had actually been viciously killed by the office higher-ups. Nothing like dead silence from all your bosses after the screening ends! We are no longer at that job.

We're thinking fondly of that video today in light of the news that an apoplectic Gavin Newsom and Heather Fong have now suspended 20 police officers from the Bayview Station, after they discovered an online cache of parody video clips where various officers mocked women, the transgendered, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans. Officer Andrew Cohen, the cop responsible for the clips, and who calls himself an auteur (.pdf), has come out swinging, claiming it was all in good fun, Fong is "micromanaging," and that he's going to fight his suspension. "My mistake was deciding a lot of cops wanted to see funny video clips," he said. "I put a few clips on there [the Internet] and boom." Uh, yeah, that Internet, gets you every time.

We haven't seen all the videos yet (and don't plan to), but from what we saw online and the descriptions we read, it seems less that the videos are offensive (like those Niners videos were) and more that they're just profoundly lame. Wow, officers doing tai chi and men dressed in drag! Boy, that's some real cutting-edge humor.

And hey, shouldn't Officer Cohen be spending less time trying to boost morale and more time, say, doing some actual policing in the Bayview? When you solve all the murders in your district, Officer, please then feel free to make all the "artistic" movies you want.

Watch the videos on CBS5.com.

Image from the videos, from the Chron, who got them off KPIX