ESCONDIDO: Protestors say police harassed, videotaped them

Demonstrators were picketing sobriety checkpoint

By EDWARD SIFUENTES - esifuentes@nctimes.com North County Times - Californian |

Posted: Monday, October 11, 2010 7:44 pm

Demonstrators at an Escondido checkpoint Saturday night said they were harassed by police officers who told them to move, threatened to cite them, and videotaped and photographed them.

A spokesman for the Escondido Police Department said Monday that officers were trying to get the group to move to a safer location.

The group, including Escondido City Council candidate Carmen Miranda, her two teen daughters and about a dozen others were holding signs at the intersection of North Broadway and East Lincoln Avenue, warning drivers of a police checkpoint ahead.

Some of the signs read: "Checkpoint," "White Collar Crime Ahead" and "Car Thieves Ahead," members of the group said.

Police held a sobriety and driver's license checkpoint from about 6 p.m. to midnight a few blocks away on Lincoln Avenue and East Fig Street.

Miranda said her daughters and several adults held signs on the southwest corner of the intersection, near a park-and-ride lot, and that she was with another part of the group across the street on the southeast corner of the intersection.

About 7:30 p.m., an officer driving a volunteer patrol car approached Miranda's daughters and told them to move across the street, Miranda said.

Miranda said her daughters asked him if he was a police officer or a volunteer.

According to Miranda and others who were there, the police officer answered: "I am a police officer and I have a gun."

"To the girls, it was a threat," Miranda said.

Lt. Tom Albergo, who heads the department's traffic division, said the area where the group was standing, at the intersection of Highway 78 and North Broadway, was dangerous because of the speeding traffic coming off the freeway.

Police were asking them to move to a safer location, he said.

The police officer's words may have been misconstrued by the group, Albergo said.

"We don't know if that was taken out of context," Albergo said. "If I am in full uniform and I have a badge and I have a gun and someone asks, 'Are you a police officer?' and I say, 'I am a cop and I have a gun,' I don't see anything inappropriate with that because that's a statement of fact."

Jenifer Leiendecker, an Escondido resident who frequently protests police checkpoints and was standing near the girls when the incident occurred, said the same officer started to take pictures of the group.

"(The officer) begins to take pictures of all of us, literally getting up into our faces and taking several pictures of everyone," Leiendecker said. "He yells at my husband to show his face and not to hide behind the sign he is holding."

A few minutes earlier, she exchanged words with another officer on a motorcycle who parked in front of her, Leiendecker said.

That officer also pulled out a camera, but she turned her back and did not see if he took pictures, she said.

When she asked the officer if he was going to cite her, he said, "Just keep doing what you are doing," Leiendecker said.

That comment, and comments the other officer made, led her to believe that she was being threatened, she said.

Albergo said police often document the checkpoints by taking pictures and video.

He said that when people hold signs at checkpoint locations, police document those incidents, as well.

Since 2006, the Escondido Police Department has ramped up its checkpoint program in an effort to curb traffic safety problems, including hit-and-run crashes, police officials have said.

Critics say the checkpoints are alienating the Latino community, including some members who are illegal immigrants and are ineligible for driver's licenses.

The checkpoints often result in dozens of vehicles being impounded from unlicensed drivers.

During the six-hour operation Saturday, more than 2,500 vehicles passed through the checkpoint. Police conducted 13 sobriety tests; five people were arrested for drunken driving and six drivers did not have a license.

Seventeen vehicles were impounded, Albergo said.

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

NORTH COUNTY TIMESl