Riding with the Culver City Police

My attempts were in vain. "And the Los Angeles fucking Times is just relentless," he said. "Don't you think?" I tried, desperately: "And the movies don't help either, " I said. But he didn't budge. "Yes, but films are still entertainment." "People don't dismiss movies like 'Crash' and 'Training Day', though," I responded, finally, to some success. "Just a few bad apples man - the truth is, everyone loves to hate the police, until they need them," he said.

Our conversation started around 10 p.m. "We are going to go look for bad guys," Butler said as we drove out of the Culver City police station. I was riding shotgun in the 2004 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.

The citizen ride-along program was initiated to involve the community in police affairs with the aim of building mutual respect. But Butler believes that the Culver City doesn't have that problem. He said the community is satisfied; they appreciate the department's work. This is probably the reason this police department doesn't have cameras in their patrol vehicles. 

"How would you feel, if you were continuously recorded?" Butler blames the media for encouraging the public's poor opinion of the police, and specifically of the Los Angeles police. "The LAPD is possibly the finest police outfits in the world. It's just sad," he said.

Our first stop: 7-Eleven. I bought myself a donut. I don't like donuts, especially not from 7-Eleven, but I thought it was the appropriate thing to do. I paid for the bottle of water he was buying; thought he would need it after all the questions I was prepared to ask.

So far, the ride had been a series of friendly warnings for broken brake lights. The idea of chasing and stopping vehicles for minor violations is to search for something more serious.

 Around 10:30 p.m., we stopped a Chevy pick-up for an expired registration. The man has an eagle's vision. He saw an "AUG" sticker on the left hand corner of the license plate of the pick-up that zoomed past us on LaSelle Avenue. This stop was unusual. I got out of the car to take notes the moment I heard Butler radio for back-up.

Butler found some crystal methamphetamine (popularly called "meth") residue on the driver - it was hardly one-tenth of a gram. The officer who responded to Butler's call for back-up recognized the passenger in the Chevy. A few years ago, he had arrested him for stealing pizzas from a Pizza Hut deliveryman. The passenger is now all of 19 years old.

 Butler consulted his colleague. "I have let people go with more and booked people with less," he said. A few moments of silence later Butler walked towards the driver who was made to leave his vehicle and sit on the curb. He gave him the tiny zip-lock bag of residue and said, "empty it here on the floor."

 I was surprised. "That's a pussy arrest," Butler said as we got back in the cruiser. There was virtually nothing there; we got bigger problems than that. Butler has definitely seen bigger problems. He is an ex-marine, who served two terms in Iraq.

"I don't think we need to be in Iraq right now. Afghanistan, sure," he said. But when your in Iraq, you are not there for your president, your there for the marines on either side of you."

 Since this was the night of the vice presidential debate, I couldn't resist asking his opinion of Sarah Palin. "She worries me," he said "but what can I do, I am a Republican."