Homeland Security and a fast Ferrari
IT'S THE MOST fabulously preposterous L.A. traffic accident since "Crash," and it just gets better and better. And unlike "Crash" -- in case anyone believes that the movie is a documentary -- it's true.
A million-dollar red Ferrari, just like one made for the pope, races a Mercedes up PCH in Malibu and crashes into a light pole at 162 mph. Total casualties: One cut lip, on the face of Stefan Eriksson, who insists that he was just a passenger and that the Ferrari's driver, a German fellow named Dietrich, ran off. The Mercedes sped away too, although investigators suspect that it, along with Dietrich, never existed.
This is all good stuff, but here's the part I really love: Two guys show up at the scene of the accident flashing badges. They claim Homeland Security status and spirit away Eriksson.
Eriksson turns out to be a suspected Swedish counterfeiter and ex-honcho of a European video game company that crashed almost as spectacularly as the Ferrari. He was waving around a business card declaring him to be a deputy police commissioner of an antiterrorism unit, a title awarded him for technical help to the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority, which fields a fleet of -- hang on while I get my calculator -- five small buses. The SGVTA operates out of Homer's Auto Service in Monrovia, doing the laudable and much-needed work of ferrying disabled people to their appointments.
A little shuttle service has an antiterrorism unit? Gentlemen, repeat after me: it's Al Qaeda, and El Monte.
Sheriff's deputies, the feds and even Scotland Yard are puzzling all this out. So are Times newsguys Richard Winton and David Pierson. They found the "SGV Transit Authority Police" website (now vanished from the Internet), so puffed up you'd think the unit is a farm team for the LAPD. But the whole "force," according to Times reporting, consists of at most six and probably three guys, including the owner of the auto repair shop. It's like a Marx Brothers movie, minus one brother.
The website warns that even a little medical van service can be targeted by evildoers, but not to worry: There's a "vigilant undercover and overt officer presence" as well as "plainclothes officers and a narcotics detection K-9 team." Wow -- with that massive police presence, are there any seats left on the bus for passengers?
