Don't Hate Esther Because She's Beautiful

Esther Hwang picked a bad day for a press conference -- normally, the media would be all over the former Willie Brown secretary turned cheesecake model turned San Francisco Law School student discussing the $1 million lawsuit she's filed against the SFPD for alleged brutality against her outside a North Beach bar -- but with everyone distracted by Ed Jew's flight from the law, Carole Migden's cancer-related bad driving, and in a city that now expects out of its mayoral girlfriends underage drinking, sordid affairs with best friends' wives, and/or misjudged blog commentary, Ms. Hwang's press conference seemed like a quaint trip in the San Francisco wayback machine to the last century.

Hwang claims that she was outside the North Beach bar Dolce last week, celebrating the end of her law school finals and waiting for her boyfriend when she saw some police officers. She said, in a flirty voice, "I guess you'll have to tackle me if I try to cross the street," at which point she says the cops, totally unprovoked, grabbed her by the hair, tackled her, and took her into custody. She claims she was targeted because of her relationship with Willie Brown and says contrary to what the cops say, she was not drunk. She'd only had one pear cider that night. The cop in question, it turns out, has a long record of citizen complaints.

SFist Jim picked up a 30 second snippet of the press conference you can listen to here -- it's worth hearing Esther detail what happened to her "pretty dress," pearl necklace, and fur coat. It's like that scene in Clueless when Cher gets mugged. "But this dress is an Alaia!!!!!"

After the jump (and updated!): More excellent picture by SFist Jim for your perusal. And there's some more spectacular pictures by Luke Thomas on Fog City Journal too.

Picture by SFist Jim. Yes, those pictures behind Hwang are swimsuit pictures of herself.