NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned that a veteran Mountain View officer whose sexually explicit social media posts were found to have violated the department’s anti-discrimination policies was suspended for two weeks, a discipline that a veteran independent police monitor considers far too lenient under the circumstances.
The Investigative Unit obtained more than 300 pages of police records related to the case against Officer Andrew Wong under a new police accountability law.
They show that back during the early days of the COVID pandemic in 2020, Wong began posting photos of his new culinary creations under the names “Immature Baker” and “Officer Sprinkles.”
In the dozens of off-duty Instagram posts, Wong made sexually charged references to everything from smoked ribs to raspberry brownies.
In reference to a Cajun chicken alfredo dish, Wong wrote: “Like pets and sex, these are two things that are great individually but should not be confined.”
Referring to a cinnamon roll cookie recipe, he said the following: “pairing cinnamon rolls and cookies is the best thing since combining chocolate and peanut butter. Or edible underwear and cousins in some parts of the country.”
LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge who served as San Jose’s independent police auditor, reviewed the posts, many too explicit to be published in detail.
“The posts I found to be crude, to be offensive,” she said, adding: “because you’re off duty or you’re sitting at home and posting does not mean you still don’t carry the mantle of being a police officer.”
After a fellow officer reported the postings, the department launched an internal probe. It later found some of the posts were either racially offensive or disparaged people with disabilities and violated a number of department policies.
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In one Instagram post, under a photo of a salad, Wong wrote that the “biggest difference” between his house and the Chipotle restaurant chain is “when I go into the bathroom at home, I don’t have flashbacks of having sex with the extremely unattractive and overweight cashier with tattooed eyebrows. Just kidding Rosa, you’re only moderately unattractive.”
In other posts, Wong made crude, joking references to gay sex, or mocked blind children, like in this caption posted under a cookie recipe.
“I thought I’d take them to the blind orphanage (where I volunteer every week) and have the kids help me with the frosting. I got so upset with how poorly they did that I told them they’re lucky they can’t see the look of disappointment on their parents’ face because their eyes don’t work and because their parents ditched them. Turns out their eyes do work for crying, just not for seeing.”
Reviewing those posts, Cordell said they were “very disrespectful of so many elements of our community,” and added: “You don’t want someone wearing a badge and carrying a gun who has these attitudes patrolling in your neighborhood.”
When fellow officers complained and asked him to stop the offensive posts, Wong responded by blocking those officers on Instagram or shifting accounts, the investigation found.
Wong did not respond to requests for an interview. But as he faced possible discipline, records show Wong expressed remorse and told Internal Affairs in 2021 he was just trying to be funny.
“If anyone was offended, I truly, deeply apologize, that was not my intent,” Wong told investigators. “The intent was to make some jokes and make people laugh, and not to bring any shame or discredit to the department.”
But after finding the posts amounted to discriminatory conduct that was also unbecoming an officer, then police Chief Chris Hsiung suspended Wong for three weeks and ordered he undergo sensitivity training.
Hsiung, now undersheriff of San Mateo County, later cut the punishment to two weeks without pay, given that the officer showed remorse and accepted responsibility.
Hsiung did not comment on Wong’s case, but the police department said in statement that the outcome in any discipline matter is determined by the severity of the conduct, the officer’s history, and whether the outcome would withstand a legal challenge.
Cordell believes the short suspension in this case sends the wrong message to the community.
“It saddens me that this person just wasn’t told ‘you’re not needed here in Mountain View, to be a part of the law enforcement community here,’ not with those attitudes," Cordell said.
