ESCONDIDO: Police set to conduct DUI checkpoints every other week

City has 2nd-worst record for hit-and-runs among 50 similar cities

By LUCIA WALINCHUS
Posted: Saturday, December 5, 2009 10:05 pm

Escondido police set up a checkpoint Saturday night at South Ash Street and Oak Hill Drive, close to where San Pasqual Valley Road turns into Ash. Within one hour, officers had netted two drivers for being under the influence of alcohol and another with cocaine.

"That's a pretty good haul," said Sgt. Robert Healey of the Escondido Police Department.

Escondido has received about $425,000 worth of grants from the California Office of Traffic Safety to do 21 sobriety and driver's license checkpoints during the fiscal year that began in October.

The money also will go to four other alcohol-related programs: 16 sobriety patrols, when extra police officers are assigned to look for drunken drivers; four court stings, in which officers check to see if people whose license has been revoked for alcohol-related offenses are driving themselves to court; five stakeout operations, and five warrant-service operations.

Escondido was rated the second-worst city among 52 similar-sized municipalities in California for the number of hit-and-runs in 2007, according to the most recent statistics from the state Office of Traffic Safety. As a result, the city gets large share of the state money available to perform checkpoints, said Lt. Chris Wynn.

So far this fiscal year, police have set up sobriety checkpoints nearly every two weeks, on Oct. 10 and 24, Nov. 9 and 21. At those four, officers arrested 12 people for driving under the influence and impounded 157 cars.

Twenty officers participated in Saturday's sobriety checkpoint, along with six community service officers, five cadets, and five senior volunteers. Oak Hill Drive saw a flurry of activity as police and volunteers scurried from car to car, talking to drivers, filling out reports and conducting field sobriety tests. A team of four tow companies towed car after car on Oak Hill Drive.

To set up the checkpoint, officers place traffic cones along a main thoroughfare to narrow it to two lanes. As drivers approach the checkpoint, the first five or six cars enter a primary screening area, while the rest of the cars are funneled into a bypass lane. If the screened drivers can produce a license and don't appear intoxicated, they are sent along, whereas those who appear tipsy or take too long producing a license are taken to a secondary screening area on a side street.

While police officers usually need probable cause that a crime has been committed before they can stop anyone, checkpoints get around this requirement because they have a broad brush. Many cars are stopped randomly, so no one is targeted individually, a method the Supreme Court approved in 1990.

The checkpoints are not without controversy. The biggest concern is that they disproportionately affect illegal immigrants, who can't get licenses. The Border Patrol does not participate in sobriety checkpoints, and the Escondido police does not report anyone's immigration status, unless that person is arrested for an outstanding felony warrant.

However, anyone caught without a license will have their car impounded for 30 days, an expense that adds up to hundreds of dollars in towing and storage fees.

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