Smoke and mirrors
A badge and gun shouldn’t put anyone above the law
By Kevin Uhrich 08/28/2008
At least we’re safe, or so I reasoned after seeing a Homeland Security police cruiser parked in a red zone last week in front of a neighborhood tobacco retailer.
Inside the usually bustling smoke shop at around lunchtime sat two uniformed officers — a man and a woman, the man delicately fondling a fat stogie that he was puffing on as his partner just sat there quietly, looking around the shop.
It was all very convenient and cozy. Usually, trendy and fun Old Pasadena only starts livening up at around noon. So not only were these two officers alone, except for the company of a couple of clerks, but their cruiser — with no cars parked in front of it — sat just a few feet away from three vacant nonemergency spots, their meters all yearning for spare change.
But feeding municipal parking meters, the revenue from which, incidentally, goes to keeping Old Pas the wonderful place that it is, apparently is not a regular practice for these two officers.
At first I thought: Ahhh, just let it go. Don’t get excited. Hey, they’re at lunch. Who cares if they flout the law right in front of everyone’s face, including the staff members of this newspaper? Who cares if I’ve seen other average citizens who don’t carry badges and guns get tickets there all the time?
But then I thought: If they’re on a lunch break, what’s the emergency here? Why couldn’t they just pull a few feet ahead and park where we regular citizens have to park? They make pretty good coin for whatever it is they do. Couldn’t they feed the meter too, like the rest of us have to do? That is, of course, if they were really at lunch.
Then the flipside of all that hit me: If they were on the clock, what the hell were they doing in a smoke shop puffing on cigars?
With that, I decided to check out what was going on and walked into the cigar shop to say hi and introduce myself.
“Is that your car?” I said to the officer twirling the cigar between his moistened lips.
“Yes, that’s our car,” he said. His partner was now eyeing me suspiciously.
“Are you guys at lunch or something?” I continued.
“Who are you?” the male officer finally asked.
“Just a concerned citizen, oh, and I’m the editor of the local paper, the Weekly. There’s a rack right outside. My name is Kevin. What’s your name?”
Neither really forthcoming nor quick enough with an answer, I then asked for business cards from each of the officers, which neither of them had in their possession.
“That’s just great,” I said. I have to admit, I was a little irritated at the fact that neither of them seemed to see anything unseemly or unprofessional about what they were doing, nor were they carrying ID cards, which most police officials are supposed to do. “I was planning on putting something about this in the newspaper. You guys probably won’t mind, will you?”
Neither of them said anything and I then huffed out of the shop, where I saw one of my reporters taking photos of the car and its license plate with his camera phone.
That same reporter noticed another Homeland Security vehicle the very next day — this one with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) insignia emblazoned on the door — taking up a spot in a loading zone on Green Street without putting any money in the meter.
Granted, after more than 20 years of reporting news, this certainly wasn’t the most egregious abuse of authority I had ever seen. Pretty minor, really. But it was more than enough cause for concern, considering how much we have all paid over the past few terror-filled years to be “safe” — ostensibly with the help of these two generously compensated officers — at the expense of many of our most basic freedoms.
Plus, if cities are serious about outlawing smoking, and they are, won’t it be these very people — officers of the law — writing tickets and arresting violators?
A few days later, after watching a guy who’s been working in this building for the past several years get a ticket for parking in that very same red zone for no more than a few minutes while running into a nearby restaurant to pick up a lunch order, I asked the city parking enforcement person if she would be so fast to give a ticket to those Homeland Security cars.
If they were parked in that red zone, “I would give them a ticket,” she said without hesitation.
I was surprised to hear that. It’s funny; the truth is that city parking cop’s statement made me feel a whole lot “safer” — a whole lot better about law enforcement in general — than those two Homeland Security officers probably ever could.
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