Opinion: Blowing Smoke on “A Tradition of Service”

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On the northbound Golden State Freeway north of Dodger Stadium, I was at a dead stop in the fast lane when, in the next lane over, I saw the driver of a black truck roll down his window and flick out his burning cigarette butt. That, in turn, had me burning -- we’d gone through red-alert fire days here recently -- and I rolled down my window and called out across the few feet between us that it’s a crime to throw a lighted cigarette onto the road, and that the CHP would cite him if they saw him.

The driver, a 30-something fellow with sleek dark hair, driving an equally sleek dark Ford F-150 truck, smiled cockily and informed me that they’d never ticket him -- he’s a sheriff’s deputy.

Swell -- an idiot with powers of arrest. Had he never seen a Southern California fire eat up houses and acreage, all started from some roadside embers? I have -- I’ve covered them. And he’s a lawman, and he didn’t know the damn law, or care? It’s a misdemeanor to throw a lighted cigarette or cigar or a burning match from a vehicle -- even from a sleek, dark Ford truck, even by a sheriff’s deputy. The fine can be a thousand dollars. If I’d had powers of arrest, I’d have used them right then and there.

He pulled slightly ahead in the traffic scrum. I wrote down the numbers on his license plate, which, sure enough, was framed by one of those KMA metal frames, code for ‘’I’ve got a law enforcement connection and you don’t, nyah nyah.’’ When I got back to the office, I called the press office of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, the department whose motto is ‘A Tradition of Service.’’

Look, I said, here’s one of your guys -- or at least he says he’s one of your guys -- breaking the law, and bragging about it.

Well, the fellow said, with a shrug in his voice, when you have 9,000 deputies, you’re bound to have some jerks. I agreed, using a stronger word. Don’t you want his license plate? I asked. Check on the guy, at least rap his knuckles for not only ignoring the law and boasting about getting away with it? Not allowed to, the LASO fellow told me. You could call the CHP but they didn’t see it, so they probably couldn’t do anything.

So he was going to get away with it, I thought.

Let me say one thing, the voice on the phone told me. I perked up. Maybe Deputy F-150 could get what was coming to him after all?

You shouldn’t take chances like that, he advised me -- talking to strange drivers like that. Could be dangerous. Around here, you never know who it might be -- maybe some gangbanger, somebody with a gun.

Yeah, I thought. Or some jerk of a sheriff’s deputy with an attitude and a Zippo.