ESCONDIDO: Driver's license checkpoint locations vary

Activists say Latino neighborhoods targeted, but evidence is mixed
By EDWARD SIFUENTES - esifuentes@nctimes.com
| Saturday, June 13, 2009 7:06 PM PDT ∞

ESCONDIDO ---- Community activists in Escondido often have criticized the Police Department's driver's license and drunken driving checkpoints, saying they most often target Latino neighborhoods.

But data on traffic stop locations provided by the department paints a more complex picture.

The checkpoints tended to be located at the city's main roadways, but about half were concentrated in the downtown and surrounding areas, which are heavily populated by Latinos, according to a North County Times analysis.

The Police Department conducts two kinds of checkpoints, one aimed primarily at nabbing unlicensed drivers, the other at catching drunken drivers. From 2006 to 2008, the department conducted 70 checkpoints.

The driver's license checkpoints are the most troublesome for some Latino activists, who say the operations are really traps intended to ensnare illegal immigrants ---- a charge vigorously denied by police officials.

Of the 39 driver's license checkpoints conducted by the Police Department from 2006 to 2008, 16 were in the city's predominantly Latino neighborhoods ---- areas where Latinos make up more than 50 percent of the population.

In the same time frame, more than half, 19, of the department's 31 drunken driving checkpoints were conducted in Latino neighborhoods.

That means that half of all checkpoints happened in Latino areas, which make up only about five square miles of the city's 36 square miles.

Despite repeated requests, police Chief Jim Maher was unavailable last week to comment for this story. He has spoken with the North County Times on the topic on several occasions. Police spokesman Lt. Bob Benton said Friday that the chief is busy with the department's budget matters.

Benton said the checkpoints' locations are based on logistics ---- heavy traffic volume and a safe place to pull over vehicles ---- not on a neighborhood's demographic characteristics.

"What I would say is come down and check," Benton said. "We invite anybody to watch (the checkpoints). We are not targeting specific individuals."

Critics of the checkpoints believe that police work hand-in-hand with immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrants, who are not eligible to get driver's licenses.

"There's no purpose for having so many checkpoints other than enforcing immigration," said Victor Torres, a spokesman for El Grupo, a North County-based umbrella organization for civil rights groups.

In April, members of El Grupo called on the city of Escondido to replace Maher, citing his checkpoint policies.

Maher dismissed criticisms about the checkpoints in an interview last month, saying activists simply want the department to stop enforcing the driver's license law.

"They don't like the checkpoints because it's a very effective way to catch people driving without a license and I'm not going to turn my back on that law," Maher said. "They want us to give them a pass to drive and we won't do it."

Maher has denied working with immigration authorities at the checkpoints. He also has said that he supports granting undocumented people driver's licenses if immigrants submit to criminal background checks and the documents look significantly different than regular licenses.

Surrounded?

Since 2006, the city has ramped up its efforts to catch unlicensed drivers. That's because Escondido ranks among the worst cities in the state when it comes to hit-and-run accidents, the chief said last month.

Escondido ranked second among 52 cities of similar size in the number of hit-and-runs for the year 2007, according to the state Office of Traffic Safety. Maher said many of those hit-and-runs may be due to unlicensed drivers who flee the scene for fear of being caught without a license and car insurance.

Latino activists say there is little evidence the checkpoints reduce the number of hit-and-runs. Instead, the department is damaging its relationship with the Latino community, Torres said.

From 2006 to 2008, the department conducted 39 checkpoints looking for people driving without a license, according to the police data. The most often used location, 11 times, was Bear Valley Parkway near Kit Carson Park and the Westfield North County mall, which is not considered a predominantly Latino area of the city. It is one of the main access roads into the city from Interstate 15.

In the same time frame, police had six checkpoints at the corner of West Ninth Avenue and Tulip Street, a heavily Latino area sometimes referred to as the Westside.

There were more four driver's license checkpoints at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Ash Street, an area known as Mission Park, considered by some as the heart of Escondido's Latino community. There were four more along East Valley Parkway, a busy business area surrounded by a large Latino population.

The city's Latino population has exploded in the last 20 years. Latinos make up about 43 percent of Escondido's 128,800 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's more than double the rate counted by the Census Bureau in 1990, when Latinos made up about 20 percent of the city's population.

The rapid rate of increase has created friction, Latino activists say, and has led to drastic measures by the City Council, including a failed effort to adopt a law that would have barred landlords from renting to illegal immigrants, many of whom are Latinos.

Activists such as Carmen Miranda, who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council in 2006, say the frequent use of checkpoints is a further extension of the city's anti-illegal immigrant policies.

Miranda said the fact that a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer works in the Police Department is proof the two agencies work together.

Miranda served on a panel of advisers to the police chief, but she resigned in November to protest the checkpoints, she said.

Hot spots

The driver's license checkpoints had been used before Maher became police chief in July 2006. But the department increased their use in the latter half of that year, Maher says, because they are the best way to catch unlicensed drivers.

The checkpoints are announced before they occur, but their location is not publicized.

During the driver's license checkpoints, police block a road and screen all drivers as they come through, said department spokesman Benton. They check the picture on the driver's license to see if the picture matches the person and whether the document is expired.

At a driver's license checkpoint held in March, police screened 980 drivers at the intersection of Avenida del Diablo and Valley Parkway. Police found 18 people driving without a license during the two-hour operation, which lasted from 10 a.m. to noon.

In 2006, Escondido police held four checkpoints, according to the department's data. It held 18 in 2007 and 17 in 2008.

The locations varied from an industrial area at the corner of West Mission Avenue and Dan Way to a residential neighborhood at El Norte Parkway, formerly Washington Avenue, and Kaile Lane.

The top locations for driver's license checkpoints were:

-- 11 at Bear Valley Parkway near Kit Carson Park

-- 6 at West Ninth Avenue and Tulip Street

-- 6 at El Norte Parkway and Kaile Lane

-- 4 at North Ash Avenue and East Lincoln Avenue

Escondido police also have increased the number of drunken driving checkpoints in recent years, from five in 2006 to 11 in 2008. During drunken driving checkpoints, police also check for driver's licenses. But drunken driving checkpoints are conducted differently than driver's license checkpoints.

At drunken driving checkpoints, police check five to six vehicles at a time, pulling drivers aside for a brief interview trying to detect signs of alcohol, Benton said. The drivers also are asked for their license. In the meantime, other vehicles are waived through.

Once the drivers are screened, another group of vehicles is pulled over, Benton said. Drunken driving checkpoints typically last longer, six to 10 hours, than driver's license checkpoints, which last two to three hours, he said.

During a drunken driving checkpoint earlier this month, more than 2,100 vehicles passed through the traffic stop at the intersection of Valley Parkway and Juniper Street. About 1,500 vehicles were screened.

During the operation, which lasted from 6 p.m. to 12:15 a.m., police found 53 unlicensed drivers and arrested eight people on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

Bill Flores, a member of El Grupo and a retired 30-year veteran of law enforcement, said the checkpoints' location is not nearly as important as their effect on the community.

Flores said he wants the Police Department to release demographic statistics on those cited at checkpoints.

Maher said the department does not keep the data.

"We simply do not track ethnicity or immigration status," Maher said. "The reason why we don't is because I am sure that ... people on both sides would use those numbers to try to inflame the community."

Call staff writer Edward Sifuentes at 760-740-3511.

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