Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez says that “the City Council has no authority to tell the Police Department what the policy should be,” according to the O.C. Register. That simply is not true.
Oakland is now abstaining from impounding unlicensed drivers’ cars – and from the hundreds of thousands of dollars the controversial seizures generate a year, according to California Watch. We wrote about that previously, at this link.
An investigation by California Watch and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism last year found that sobriety checkpoints across the state were increasingly turning into profitable operations for local police and tow companies because of these vehicle impounds. In 2009, vehicle seizures generated an estimated $40 million in towing fees and police fines from checkpoint seizures.
So have the Santa Ana DUI checkpoints accomplished anything?
You can see the results of the 2009 SAPD DUI checkpoints in the graphic above. If I read it correctly, there have been 115 DUI arrests, out of over 17,000 vehicles that have passed through the checkpoints. Of those vehicles, 4,573 were actually screened, on a random basis. Only 125 field sobriety tests have been conducted.
In that same time period, 455 vehicles were impounded. Now you figure that a third of those were the DUI arrests, although in some cases the drivers were allowed to leave their cars at the checkpoint for their family to pick up. But that still left about 300 folks without their cars. They had to pay a lot of money to get their cars back!
Click here to read more about the SAPD DUI checkpoints, as we reported back in March of last year.
The reality is that Santa Ana could easily do what Oakland did – and Alvarez is just blowing smoke. The real reason why the Santa Ana City Council won’t stop the SAPD DUI checkpoints, which as we illustrated above are utterly useless, is that the Santa Ana cops make a ton of money on overtime, when they are assigned to man the checkpoints. The money for these checkpoints comes from state grants. The Santa Ana City Council could stop the DUI checkpoints immediately by refusing to accept the state’s grant money.
Map of the SAPD Dui Checkpoints – note that they skip most of north and south Santa Ana
But if you think that anyone on the Santa Ana City Council will do anything that might piss off the SAPD, well guess again. They won’t. The police union has worked to get each of them either elected or reelected.
When I first investigated the SAPD DUI checkpoints my reward was an SAPD unit parked on my street for almost a week, at 5 pm, waiting for me to come home. I am guessing that they were hoping I would do a “California stop.” That didn’t happen so they finally gave up and left.
It is high time to stop the SAPD DUI checkpoints. They do almost nothing to stop drunk drivers. They are simply a ruse to separate otherwise law-abiding immigrants from their cars. If Oakland’s City Council could figure this out, why can’t ours?
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Other than holidays and special drinking holidays like St. Patrick's day, you could argue it is a waste of public funds and causes unwanted traffic issues. Unfortunately you lost me when you turned it into an open borders issue instead.
If they have no drivers license and no proof of insurance do you think they should have their car impounded? If not, I hope they only get into an accident with you instead of me. The rest of us that pay to insure our cars don't need that headache.
"They are simply a ruse to separate otherwise law-abiding immigrants from their cars."
I would guess you forgot to allow for the 2nd law they broke. You could have said otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens to cover yourself.
Immigrant would refer to those who waited in the long line to get the ability to live here legally. How many laws do they get to have a pass on because they are "immigrants"?
Mike,
Let's face it - most of today's Americans are not of native stock. Their parents came from somewhere else. Now you guys want to slam the border shut - against Mexicans who ARE of native stock. Unbelievable.
The fact is, the DUI checkpoints are a big waste of money. They exist to pay cops overtime and to steal cars from hardworking immigrants. The City Council needs to cancel these checkpoints ASAP.
Doc, I don't disagree with you, the 30 day clause is wrong and I think would be struck down in court.
The owners should be able to retrieve their property the very next day if impounded at all.
subject to a licensed driver picking it up, or a tow company delivering it to it final destination.
motor cops are busy today. On a short trip to food for less I've seen 10 cars pulled over in a 10 block area of down town on my 30 minute trip.
You are correct, we are all from immigrants of one type or another. The difference is some like my father actually followed our laws and did it legally.
I can't help it that the hacks that run this country wont do the right thing. We need to create ways to let labor in legally, but all they want is one amnesty after another.
Drunk checkpoints are effective as a deterrent when used during high drinking holidays, but other than that they waste our money.
MikeM,
You are 100% correct.
Please do not get caught up in the open border argument. These arguments get inserted in waste of tax money ISSUES to distract.
This example is a tool incumbents use to pay back Police PACS through.....overtime, impound fee %'s cut from tow trucks and sales profits from unclaimed vehicles.
Police Department Chiefs negotiate lucrative contracts with city councils which enable time during the work week they use for overtime work.
The DUI check point provides the overtime opportunity for police officers, which provides extra pay for policemen and money for the Department from shared impounding fees with tow trucks and city along with sales profits for the department from unclaimed vehicles.
Tax money is provided for DUI check points that have very little impact in protecting the public from drunk drivers. but big profits for city, tow trucks (that contribute to political campaigns) policemen and the Police Department.
Policemen contribute to Police PACS that fund political campaigns of those that negotiated with their Police Chief. The contract provides extra cash for contributions and non work week days to campaign for the politicians that negotiated the lucrative contracts for their benefit.
The city councils use our tax money for these types of schemes that channel our taxes trough lucrative contracts then the recipients of the lucrative contracts funnel money through contributions to their PACS to fund the political campaigns of the council that negotiated the contract.
IT IS A BEAUTIFUL SCHEME WE TAX PAYERS FUND.
DIVISIVE ARGUMENTS GET INSERTED IN ORDER TO DIVERT THE ABUSE AWAY FROM THEM AND THE ANGER DIVERTED TO THOSE THEY ARE ABUSING. DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN IT.