Reel San Pedro — Throwback to Starsky and Hutch

The Iconic Scene at Cabrillo Beach That Reshaped the Series

By Rosie Knight, Columnist

Cabrillo Beach is one of our most picturesque San Pedro gems, which means it’s no surprise that it has become a sunny staple on both the big and small screens. So put on your sunglasses and grab your favorite beach ball as we’re headed back in time to revisit a legendarily funky episode of Starsky and Hutch that saw the pair throw away their police badges — resigning from the Los Angeles Police Department — in fury at their superiors and the system, and where did they do it? On none other than our very own Cabrillo Beach. 

It all begins in Starsky and Hutch season 4, episode 18 “Targets Without a Badge: Part I” the first of a three-parter which sets up the end of the series as a whole. The titular duo heads down to Cabrillo Beach to meet their favorite informant, Huggy Bear (Antonio Fargas), who introduces them to a friend who happens to be drumming on the shores of Cabrillo. Lionel Rigger (Ted Neeley) wants to expose a corrupt Judge who’s been dealing drugs and using the corrupt system to protect himself. But soon the action moves to LA proper where their new informant is killed, leading to a crisis of conscience for the two cops who are sick of the human cost of their jobs. 

While “Starsky and Hutch is still in the classic American tradition of copaganda (pro-police propaganda), the episodes which feature San Pedro and Cabrillo Beach depict the detective duo going against their superiors to save the life of an informant that the department is willing to sacrifice to catch a corrupt judge. It’s a moral quandary that establishes the detectives as looking out for the little man and his family while setting their sights on a powerful and wealthy judge protected by the system and his criminal counterparts. The episode also dares to point the finger at the human cost of policing and how the police use informants with no thought of the potential loss and impact it can have on those involved. 

When the pair head back to Cabrillo Beach — where we get glimpses of the shoreline and old swing set in all its ’70s glory — Hutch utters the immortal line, “The way I see it, this old badge has polluted me just about enough,” just before the pair throw their badges into the cold waves of Cabrillo in an act of protest that begins their resignation from the LAPD. It feels only right for them to make this choice in San Pedro, a city where residents have often had to fight against corruption, corporate interests, and over-policing. It’s an interesting twist for the series as it soon came to an end, meaning that the two cops wouldn’t be cops for most of their final screen time. In fact, in the later episodes, they try to get a number of jobs including porn stars and ultimately private detectives. Of course, before the finale airs they’re back in their former roles as LAPD detectives, but just for a little while they believed in something bigger, something better, something less corrupt than the system that was in place. And those revelations all took place on our very own Cabrillo Beach.