Fight A DUI

The LA Times has a DUI-related article on a Compton man arrested Monday for flashing an official-looking state badge issued by Mervyn Dymally. The suspect, Pirikana Likivu Johnson (27), attempted to flash a badge identifying him as an Assembly commissioner when he was confronted earlier this year by Redondo Beach police. When he became belligerent, he was arrested and found to have a blood-alcohol level 0f 0.10%.

“This isn’t a simple DUI,” Redondo Beach City Atty. Mike Webb said Monday. “You have a situation where somebody is allegedly using a badge and falsely identifying themselves to get special favors and special treatment.”

Officers were unfamiliar with the title but arrested Johnson on suspicion of drunk driving and released him pending an investigation. State officials said there was no such title as Assembly commissioner.

Johnson did not respond to telephone calls and visits to his Compton home seeking comment earlier this year. On Monday night, he was being held in the Redondo Beach City Jail in lieu of $60,000 bail on charges of impersonating a state official, driving under the influence of alcohol and driving without a license.

Dymally’s office issued more than a dozen of the metal badges — which are emblazoned with a likeness of the state Assembly seal and the words “California State Assembly Commissioner” — to donors and constituents. Some recipients said they received the badges after making donations.

Dymally, 80, a Democrat from Compton, was in Sacramento on Monday to be sworn in for another term in the Assembly and declined through a spokeswoman to comment on the case. But in interviews earlier this year, he called the credential “a nothing badge” and said such honorary shields are commonplace.

“The possession of these badges is not an illegal act,” he said. “If it is, then arrest everybody. Arrest some white people too.”