Case #11- The LASD vs L.A.P.D. (playing cops and cops)

     In September 1987, the Carson patrol area known as, "Tortilla Flats", was suffering a rash of burglaries.  To combat this, Deputy Ray Gayton-Jacob and Al Harris, who were training officers at the time, came up with a burglary suppression plan.  On, about, Wednesday, September 14, 1987, Ray and his trainee would be dressed in full uniform, but in an unmarked, Chevy Malibu, detective car.  They would cruise the Tortilla Flats neighborhood looking for burglars.  Al and his trainee, would remain outside of the neighborhood in a regular patrol car.  If Ray and his partner saw something suspicious, they would keep an eye on it and call in Al and his trainee to check it out.

     Things were quiet, until about 1:00 A.M..  Ray, and his trainee, had just finished jamming a hype at Torrance Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue and had resumed their patrol.  Ray spotted a black and white patrol car coming slowly their way.  Ray assumed it was Al.  Ray assumed wrong.  It was an L.A.P.D. patrol car poaching in our area.  This caught Ray by surprise.  Mostly because, deputies from our station frequently poached in the surrounding L.A.P.D. areas, but we never saw L.A.P.D. poaching in our area.  As the cars passed each other, Ray gave the L.A.P.D. driver the up nod and the hand signal for code 4 (a sort of unofficial, but well recognized, "everything's cool").  For his part, the L.A.P.D. driver gave Ray the hard stare, hung a U-turn, got behind Ray and lit him up with the overheads and the spotlight.

     Ray pulled over in the belief that the officer had not seen his uniform.  Ray was also certain that once the L.A.P.D. officer walked up and saw him and his partner in full sheriff's uniforms, with a sheriff's radio in the dash, and government plates on the car, he would apologize and be on his way.  Ray was wrong, both in his belief, and his certainty.

     What the L.A.P.D. training officer and his trainee DID do was conduct a full on felony traffic stop!  For the uninitiated, what this means is, the L.A.P.D. officers took cover behind their open doors.  The passenger (an L.A.P.D. trainee) covered Ray's trainee with a shotgun.  The L.A.P.D. training officer covered Ray with his revolver.  The L.A.P.D. training officer then gave commands similar to the following;
-"OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE!  DO EXACTLY AS I SAY, OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"
-"OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE!  SHOW US YOUR HANDS!  DO IT, NOW!"
-"DRIVER!  WITH YOUR LEFT HAND, SLOWLY, REMOVE THE CAR KEYS FROM THE IGNITION AND HOLD THEM OUT THE WINDOW!"
-"TOSS THE KEYS AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE!"
- "DRIVER!  SLOWLY, USE YOUR LEFT HAND TO OPEN YOUR DRIVER"S DOOR FROM THE OUTSIDE!"
- "DRIVER!  SLOWLY, STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE, WITH YOUR HANDS UP, FACING AWAY FROM US!"
- "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" (In response to Ray's attempt to identify him and his partner as deputy sheriffs)
- "DRIVER!  TAKE TWO STEPS TO YOUR LEFT!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, TURN TO FACE YOUR VEHICLE!"
- "DRIVER!  KEEPING YOUR LEFT HAND IN THE AIR, SLOWLY REACH DOWN TO YOUR BELLY BUTTON, GRAB YOUR SHIRT AND LIFT IT!  IF YOU REACH FOR THAT GUN, I WILL KILL YOU!"
- "DRIVER!  SLOWLY, TURN AND FACE ME!"
_"SHUT UP!  SHUT UP!  SHUT UP!  IF YOU OPEN YOUR FUCKIN' TRAP AGAIN, I WILL PUT A BULLET IN IT!" (Once again, in response to Ray's attempt to talk some sense into the L.A.P.D. officer)
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, TURN AND FACE AWAY FROM YOUR VEHICLE!"
-"DRIVER! SLOWLY, TURN AND FACE AWAY FROM ME!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, PLACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY WALK BACK TOWARD THE SOUND OF MY VOICE!"
- "STOP!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY GO DOWN TO ONE KNEE!"
- "DRIVER! PUT YOUR OTHER KNEE DOWN"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, PLACE THE PALM OF YOUR RIGHT HAND ON THE GROUND!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, PLACE THE PALM OF YOUR LEFT HAND ON THE GROUND!"
- "DRIVER! SLOWLY, WALK YOUR HANDS FORWARD UNTIL YOU ARE FLAT ON THE GROUND!"
- "DRIVER! PUT YOUR CHIN ON THE GROUND!"

Ray's trainee was then ordered to SLOWLY slide into the driver's seat and SLOWLY step out of the vehicle facing forward, whereupon the whole process was repeated.

     Both deputies were then handcuffed, disarmed and seated, one on the curb and one in the squad car.  Ray had tried several times to get the L.A.P.D. training officer to just get on the sheriff's radio and call either his station, or Deputy Al Harris.  The L.A.P.D. officer told him to,
"Shut your fucking mouth, before I shoot your fuckin' ass!"

     The deputies' sheriff identification cards did nothing to ease the L.A.P.D. officer's suspicions.  Neither did the police radio and microphone in the dash, neither did the registration of the vehicle to the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, or the law enforcement gear inside the vehicle.  An L.A.P.D. field sergeant was called to the scene.  After a few minutes of listening to his officer and a few minutes of listening to Ray, he finally made the command decision that these were legit deputy sheriff's and ordered them released.  That was almost a mistake, as Ray, who was not known for his tact, or understanding nature, blew his stack and went off, like Krakatoa (at least I know RAY gets that reference).  He was cussing the L.A.P.D. training officer out in English, Dutch and Malay!  He hadn't even gone through half his Malay curse words when a Carson sergeant showed up.  The sarge knew Ray was upset, but didn't have a clue as to what he was saying.  Besides, he was concentrating on the L.A.P.D. training officer's explanation that, "We have a bunch of reports of people impersonating cops."

     It would have been cool, if Ray hadn't decided to switch briefly from Malay to call the officer a "dick" in Dutch.  This caught the Carson sergeant's attention, because surprisingly, it's identical to the word in English.  To make matters worse, by the time the Carson sergeant realized that nobody present was named "Richard", Ray had changed it up again and was back to motherfucking everybody in a blue uniform in English.

     Ray was written up, by the sergeant, for "conduct unbecoming", because of his foul language... but only in English.  The next day, when Carson station's captain, Ed Padias heard about the incident AND the subsequent write up, he went ballistic and had the write up deleted.  Captain Padias also notified our chief, who made a bee line for the L.A.P.D. Harbor Division station to get copies of these reported incidents of officer impersonation.  There were none. It was bullshit.  Eventually the L.A.P.D. training officer was fired for calling and threatening Ray, because he was facing discipline over the incident.  The L.A.P.D. trainee was not disciplined.  According to Ray, he was the only one who stayed calm during the incident.

     Shortly after the incident, some of the Carson station personnel got together and made a training film for L.A.P.D. on How to Identify Deputy Sheriff's to help prevent future incidents from occurring. Ray said that almost forty years after the incident, he was still getting calls from across the nation, from officers who had seen the video, or heard about the incident, and wanted to know if it was true or bullshit.

VERDICT - The Court is going to have to find this particular L.A.P.D. officer guilty of Obstructing Peace Officers In The Performance Of Their Duties,

SENTENCE - Well, ya already done been fired, so I don' know what Ah kin do....  Oh, I have an idea, Ah'll jist sentence all the readers to watch the attached video.  That'll do ya.

Special thanks to Ray for allowing me to use this video and to the deputies who made the film.  Yes they were all real deputies.