Many times on this blog I have provided detailed documentation of Clark Baker’s penchant for making extreme exaggerations and outright false claims. One area where Mr. Baker has exhibited his habit for braggadocio is his career with the LAPD. I can not count the number of times I have seen Baker make the claim about the thousands of thugs, criminals and felons he has arrested. But now I have found evidence, in Mr. Baker’s own words, that contradicts his own number of arrests. As a matter of fact, Baker comes right out and admits that he stopped doing his job for 8 years due to some unnamed bit of petty bitterness toward the job he claims to have so dearly loved and been so great at:

“Although I had arrested thousands of career criminals, junkies, felons, and drunks before 1994, I successfully avoided criminal suspects and arrested no one between 1992 until I retired in 2000.  Warren Christopher would have been very proud of my spotless complaint record.  I figured that if jurors, prosecutors, judges, politicians, and my police department refused to support my efforts [then] arresting predators was pointless.  As far as I was concerned, LA’s residents would get the gangs, crime, and declining quality of life that they deserved.

So I went through the motions.  My uniform and motorcycle were spotless.  I kissed babies, smiled, waved, and became the model of the new LAPD—an all-American patriot who did everything except the job he was sworn to do.  As an LA cop, I became little more than an attractive, well-paid lie.”

Mr. Baker proudly admits to not doing his job for 8 full years. And let’s not forget that Mr. Baker was suspended from the LAPD for 3 years due to the police brutality excessive use of force lawsuit filed against him. So that is 11 years out of a 20 year career and yet we are supposed to believe that in 9 years Mr. Baker arrested thousands of people and received “more than 80 commendations” while a traffic cop police officer?

Let’s examine another claim Mr. Baker has made many times. Baker loves to claim that he has received “more that 80 commendations” while he was with the LAPD. In paragraph 4 of the affidavit that he submitted in his lawsuit against me Baker phrased it like this:

“I have received more than 80 commendations from the LAPD command staff and local, state and federal officials for meritorious service.”

And if you scroll down the affidavit linked above to Attachment #1 on page 47 you will find examples of those “commendations for meritorious service”. Of course he has not listed all 80 commendations (because they probably do not exist) but I find it curious that he supplied the ones that he did. Keep in mind that this affidavit was submitted to a Federal Court in a lawsuit in which Mr. Baker claimed One Million Dollars in damages. I have broken them down:

• 1 Certificate for Graduating from the Police Academy
• 6 Certificates of Congratulations on Retirement
• 1 Certificate of Initiation into the American Legion
• 1 Certificate for Creating a Video Enforcement Program
• 1 Certificate for Creating a Video Enforcement Program geared toward schools
• 1 Plaque for the same Video Enforcement Program
• 1 Newspaper clipping about his work with IT to help develop the LAPD website

To me that is a bit thin. It is only 12 items and many of them are just duplicates on the same “accomplishment” if you call retirement an accomplishment. Let’s look at two definitions:

Commendation: an award involving special praise. Or even the lesser definition: an official citation or award.

Meritorious: deserving praise; reward; esteem.

I’ve said it before, Mr. Baker is nothing if not humble.