Carlton Lassiter

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Carlton Lassiter
First appearance	Pilot
Information
Aliases	Booker (nickname from his mother) Lassie (nickname given by Shawn)
Gender	Male
Age	30's
Occupation	Santa Barbara Police Head Detective
Family	a wife (separated)
Relatives	Mother (who was unaware he was separated)
Portrayed by	Timothy Omundson
Created by	Steve Franks & Andy Berman

Detective Carlton Lassiter is a character in the American dramedy Psych played by Timothy Omundson. Lassiter is a 10-year veteran of the Santa Barbara Police Department, and the youngest Head Detective ever named to the force 1. He generally distrusts Shawn Spencer, but has come to have a grudging respect for his investigational skill. He does not believe that Shawn is a psychic, but is unable to otherwise explain his results. He does not spend his energy paying attention to aesthetics, pointing out to his partner that he hadn't noticed certain elements of his surroundings that he found functionally irrelevant.

Carlton's fourth-great-grandfather, Mascomb Lassiter, was a Union commander during the American Civil War, and led Union forces against William Clark Quantrill's Raiders in the 1865 "Battle of Piper's Cove." Because of this ancestry, Lassiter leads meticulous Civil War reenactments with a crew of volunteers, including dentist George Cheslow, insurance agent Sally Reynolds, jeweler Griffin Mahoney, Nelson Poe and Luke Bauer. Though the Battle of Piper's Cove holds special significance to him, Lassiter's troupe had not reenacted the battle for several years prior to 2006.

In 2002, Lassiter was involved with the operation that captured two of the three men responsible for the Holby Bank robbery. The third man, David Wilcroft, presumably died in a car-crash before he could be apprehended, and the $3.6-million that had been stolen was not recovered. Lassiter considers these loose ends to be an indication of failure, because he feels that wrapping them up would "make [his] career."

At some point, Lassiter also arrested an aspiring poet named Rory for assault when Rory got into a fight with a "guy who didn't like [his] poetry." Rory was sentenced to 250 hours of community service, which he spent as a counselor for a 1-800 stress-line; his approach was highly unorthodox, straying from the caller's concerns to the poetry of suicide without provocation.

A month prior to the arrival of Shawn Spencer at the SBPD, Lassiter's close friend and mentor, Police Chief John Fenich retired from the Department. Lassiter said in the inaugural entry of his weblog that Fenich "made me the cop I am today. Without his guidance, this Force [the SBPD] would be a very different place and I would be a very different man. He was the one that lead me to the Academy in the first place, offering me an option at a dangerous point in my youth."

At the opening of the series, Lassiter is five months into a trial separation with his wife and engaged in a relationship with his partner of less than a year, Detective Lucinda Barry (though Lassiter refers to her as "Lucina"). This relationship was evidently meant to be kept quiet, as Barry didn't want anyone to think that she was "climbing the ladder the hard way," but Shawn was able to determine the nature of the detectives' personal dynamic within minutes of meeting them for the first time. Soon after, however, Barry transferred, at least partially because she wanted to be closer to her mother who was recovering from an industrial accident. Whether their relationship played any part in the transfer, however, is still unknown. (While drunk, Lassiter confesses in From the Earth to the Starbucks that he has been separated from his wife for two years. Even Lucina was unaware of this.)

Lassiter's replacement partner is rookie Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara, in whom he sees "a lot of potential"; he even claims that the rookie reminds him of a younger version of himself in personality. Since Shawn became involved with the SBPD, Lassiter has been involved in arrests of Camden McCallum Sr., Miklos Prochazka, Lacey Maxwell, David and Raylene Wilcroft (to wrap up the 2002 Holby Bank robbery), Wes Hiltenbock, Griffin Mahoney, Sally Reynolds, Robert Dunn, Edna Crocker, and Hugo. Before Shawn's arrival, Lassiter and (likely) Barry investigated and apprehended the "Back Bay Killer," though Lassiter later learned that the case had been broken on an anonymous tip from Spencer.

Lassiter appears to consider himself above the usual channels of authority and chain of command that restrict officers with less experience, possibly as a result of his quick ascent of the departmental ladder. He self-authorized several stake-outs in pursuit of David Wilcroft's former bank-robbery partners after they were parolled in 2006, and argued police-code minutia with O'Hara when she called him on it. Strangely, he also refuses to take credit for work he didn't do, even when that credit is offered to him and would benefit him.

Lassiter's unstable marriage is clearly a deeply sensitive issue, and appears to stem from a disagreement he and his wife had on the topic of children; Lassiter's wife thinks that Carlton does not want children, though when Vick's daughter is born, Lassiter says that his wife's assumption is mistaken. When Officer Buzz McNab even mentions his marriage in an attempt to get advice on his wedding-night performance, Lassiter makes it clear he wants no part in the discussion. The reaction leads McNab to call a 1-800 stress-line instead, which in turns lead him to nearly become the fourth victim of serial killer Wes Hiltenbock; Lassiter (along with O'Hara, Vick, Shawn and Gus) is on site to take Hiltenbock down with Shawn's help, and betrays his usual disdain for Shawn by complimenting him for an "adequate" performance. This mirrors the compliment that Shawn's father Henry gave him in 1986 by calling Shawn's display of his observational prowess "adequate."

Lassiter has made it clear that he does not believe that Shawn is psychic, but he does recognize (though rarely admits while drunk, and then only grudgingly) that Shawn is a talented investigator. His early disdain for Shawn, then, seems borne from what he views as Shawn's trivialization of police work (not abiding by what Lassiter sees as "the rules of investigation") coupled with his incomprehensibility of Shawn's strangely effective techniques (unraveling cases after apparently not paying attention). Since he does not understand the oblique methods of Shawn's brand of detection, he initially dislikes the ersatz psychic.

Lassiter's relationship with Interim Police Chief Karen Vick seems strained by the fact that he sees her as "an outside" who was chosen by "the powers that be in City Hall" to take the position over "someone from within our own ranks" when former Chief John Fenich retired. Vick's decision to allow a self-proclaimed psychic so far into official police investigations has done little to assuage his misgivings. He has no qualms with raising his voice to his boss, giving her direct orders, or addressing her by her first name in front of colleagues.

He does awkwardly attempt to smooth the dynamic with Vick on the drive to non-lethal weaponry training, but his efforts were interrupted when Vick's water broke; he rushed her to a hospital, where she gave birth shortly thereafter. He is persuaded by the Interim Chief to stay through the birth, and winds up cutting the umbilical cord on Vick's daughter. No doubt his actions did more to reconcile his relationship with Vick than his stilted words could have.

Lassiter ranks Dirty Harry Callahan as one of his Top 5 greatest movie cops ever, though he has more professional respect for Callahan's superior, Lt. Neil Briggs (an intriguing choice, considering the outcome of that film). He takes his coffee with three creamers and four sugars, and Shawn has warned him that such a concoction is a recipe for a heart attack. He is also allergic to mint.

Psych v • d • e

Episode list

Shawn Spencer • Burton "Gus" Guster • Henry Spencer Head Detective Carlton Lassiter • Junior Detective Juliet O'Hara • Interim Police Chief Karen Vick