The LAPD is a force for good and light in the universe. Everyone hears about things like; the Rampart Division scandal, Mark Furhman, the Rodney King beating, Daryl Gates's inactivity during the crucial hours of the 1992 riots, the targeting of gays in public restrooms and alleged racial profiling, but I tell you the LAPD is nifty.
Why, just this evening as I was walking to the corner store for Orange Juice, the LAPD showed their concern for my personal safety. I wasn't aware that there was a curfew in effect in certain neighborhoods of Los Angeles during school nights for those dastardly children under the age of 17, and being 23 I normally would not be worried about such a curfew. But the LAPD is so much the bastion of dilligence, that they stopped me on my way back from the store with my orange juice and informed me that I was out after curfew. My astounded reply was that I was 23 and the curfew did not affect me, but once more the kindly LAPD officer was so concerned for my personal safety that he asked me for identification to prove it. Shame-faced because I had forgotten that I live in a Police State where my papers are required at all times, I allowed the jovial gent in blue to follow me home where I presented him with two forms of valid ID. Thank god they're out there patrolling the street!
Nor is this the only example I can give of the LAPD's sterling efficiency and service. Not two years ago, I was wickedly sneaking around an expensive neighborhood in a white linen shirt. I thought I was clever because I chose to walk down a well-lit street with moderate traffic. But the LAPD was on to me. Their officers stopped me, frisked me and had me face down on the concrete in no time, because apparently my nefarious evil twin had committed a convenience store robbery a scant six miles away. Ah, they realized that if I were to commit a robbery, I'd certainly be on-foot on Third Street wearing a white shirt, hiding in plain sight! Once I finally convinced them that I was walking to my friend's house from a club, they raced off to find the real culprit, and I was able to rest easy because they would not cease their search until the crime was solved.
And even before that incident I can think of times where the LAPD was out to protect and serve just like the motto on their car doors. There was the time some friends and I were pulled over in a silver Toyota Previa that was playing "Girls Just wanna have fun" because of "suspected gang activity". The canny officers knew that minivans were common vehicles among low-riders and thugs. Despite the fact that the passengers in the van were; a black boy in glasses and a green polo shirt, a Samoan in a red jersey, a Filipino in grey and a blond/blue-eyed waif from Nebraska who was wearing pink, and the only gang that I could think of that we could all possibly belong to would require us to shout something silly like "Blue Octopus Lasersword Power," the officers were not fooled by our cunning and saw us right away for the underlord sleazebags we were.
God Bless the LAPD! Shantih Shantih Shantih! | 
