An Open Letter from Detective Cole Phelps, L.A.P.D.

To my colleagues at the L.A.P.D., and to the citizens of Los Angeles whom I have sworn to protect,

I would like to take this opportunity to clear up a few misconceptions about my conduct while on duty over the last several days.

First and foremost, I would like to address certain aspersions levelled against my driving skills. Yes, it is true that I have on several occasions had difficulty keeping within my lane, or indeed on my side of the road; and in fact, yes, sometimes I struggle to actively keep off the sidewalk. Sometimes I have driven, some might say recklessly, head-on into oncoming traffic. I have hit, at an estimate: three lamp-posts, a mailbox, the backs of uncounted other motor vehicles, the side of a streetcar, and one pedestrian.

In fact, I'd like to pause in the defence of my driving skills for a moment to put to rest the most malicious rumour of all: that pedestrian was not killed. In fact I barely clipped him, and he didn't even fall over. He walked away from the site of the mishap (I feel that accident is too strong a word) under his own power, and I am sure with no lasting ill-effects. My partner on patrol that day is willing to testify to the truth of this statement, though to be honest I am offended that the matter has got this far out of hand already, and I'm sure everyone involved would rather people just drop the matter.

To return to my original point, there are several factors to be given in my own defence. First, my patrol car handles like a shopping trolley with a wheel missing that will crawl to a dead stop if not pushed past 70 mph, to say nothing of the fact that holding down the foot-brake for a second too long causes the car to reverse. I would really like to see those detractors among my colleagues do any better.

Second, no damage to public or private property has been even remotely comparable to the cumulative effect of these numerous impacts on my own car, the bonnet of which now resembles a cross between a concertina and an empty soda can that's been - well, I suppose the closest analogy would be "run over by a car".

Thirdly and finally, it has become apparent to me that the citizens of Los Angeles either do not understand or simply choose not to obey the significance of a police siren. In order to compensate for my difficulty, which I fully acknowledge, in handling the finer points of controlling my vehicle, I elect to sound my siren whenever said vehicle is in motion. I was taught to understand that if you encountered a police car with its siren running, you should pull your own vehicle to the side of the road to allow it to pass. Apparently not so the motorists of Los Angeles. Likewise, though admittedly this was never directly covered in my driver's training, I believe that the unspoken yet easily inferable rule exists that should a police car with its siren sounding mount the pavement in your vicinity, it is your duty as a citizen to clear that area as quickly as possible. I am an officer of the law attempting to do my duty and protect you, in spite of the contemptible state of the equipment I have been given to do so. I am not asking for your thanks, but a little co-operation seems like the least you could do.

Before I conclude, there has been another accusation cast in my direction of late, with regards to the facts in the case immediately preceding my promotion to detective. It has been implied by various of my colleagues, whom I regrettably suspect are resentful of my sudden rise through the ranks, that it took four identical conversations with my suspect to extract a confession, despite my having an eyewitness account irrefutably pointing to him as the perpetrator.

It does not take a trained psychological profiler to understand why I did this; not to be too blunt about it, a child would understand the tactics I put to work during that interrogation. Forcing the suspect to go over his story again and again, with word perfect repetition every time, was both disorienting and confusing for him. I knew that eventually he would slip up, would deviate from that well-rehearsed script - and he did. During that fourth session, he confessed to everything. He was dancing to my tune the entire time, good people of Los Angeles. As to any of my colleagues who claim to have heard three loud altercations between myself and my commander in the hall outside the interview room, in which he repeatedly (not to say repetitively) questioned my intelligence and abilities - I’m sorry to say that they were taken in as well. It was all part of our carefully executed drama to get that confession. It is not in my nature to want to deceive honest, law-abiding people like my colleagues; but a little hurt pride on the part of the less imaginative among our boys in blue is a small price to pay to live in a city that is safe and free from crime, is it not?

In closing, I would like to emphasise that it is not for myself that I wrote to address these misrepresentations - it is for you, the citizens of Los Angeles. I am a naturally reserved man, but it has warmed my heart on many occasions just how many of you have recognised me from my many high-profile cases; have stopped in the street to greet me and congratulate me on a job well done, even as I knocked several of you over in the course of my latest foot pursuit.

(Rest assured, those snatch-and-grab pickpockets were dealt with to the full extent of the law - though once again, some have called into question my decision to use deadly force when intervening in what they have termed “non-violent” and “relatively minor” offences. I am a soldier in the war against crime - not to mention a decorated war veteran - and as a soldier of such long standing, I possess near-perfect aim. I am not a cold-hearted man, and I fully accept that those deaths were regrettable. But to call them “unnecessary” and even “cruel” would be to ignore both the righteousness and the surgical precision with which justice was dispatched. I doubt that anyone except a card-carrying Red could disagree with my thinking.)

So it is to you - the good, law-abiding, god-fearing people of Los Angeles - whom I dedicate this clarification, as I have dedicated every day I have spent on the force to date, and hope to do so for a long time yet to come. (But please try to bear in mind my advice about the siren.)

Yours,

Detective Cole Phelps, proudly of the L.A.P.D.