I met a week or so ago with Paul Walters, the Chief at the Santa Ana Police Department, and two of his top police officers. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the DUI checkpoints that the SAPD conducts, as it turns out, twice a month. You can see all of the checkpoints mapped out in the graphic above.
I was upset when the SAPD recently conducted a DUI checkpoint at Rosita Park, a sleepy immigrant neighborhood on the west side. It seemed like terrible timing given the effort, currently underway, to conduct the 2010 U.S. Census.
The SAPD uses grants from the State of California to conduct the DUI checkpoints. As you might imagine, the police officers like doing this as they get paid massive overtime.
Click here to read the rest of this post.
These statistics are very interesting, if I read them right.
SAPD conducted 14 checkpoints for all of last year. At these checkpoints 17,330 went through the checkpoints with 4573 cars “screened”. Depending on your definition of “screened” it appears about 25% of all cars passing through these checkpoints were “screened”. For the sake of argument I assume “screened” means the driver was spoken to for signs of alcohol, checked for a drivers license and possibly insurance. That sounds pretty efficient until one starts comparing the results.
From these numbers 10% of “screened” drivers had their cars impounded yet only 2.5% were arrested for D.U.I. On the other hand DUI arrests city wide, at 1098, means 24% of all drunk driving arrests were made anywhere. Subtract the 2.5% at the DUI checkpoints and it is clear that these DUI checkpoints are worthless except for money makers on vehicle impounds.
Since the city seems to be able to find thousands of dollars for overtime during summer weekend cruise night enforcement without state money, what’s the deal? The answer is DUI checkpoints are just cash cows and obviously don’t make a difference.
if you want to cath fish you go in the water . not land .
See, the Grate One is sure it’s really all about catching and intimidating undocumented immigrants, and maybe he’s right. Let’s hear it for the Tourettsie ones among us.
vern i think you might have misunderstood me . you gotta renember santa ana is full of illegals , full of hispanics , if you do these what percent of hispanics are they going to cath , 90 percent , they are not going to catch rich white folks because they have moved out . and if you want to argue the other side of this . if they where to do this in a white so called area . im sure more will be LEGAL . have their drivers lincenses , and registration .
Nice – I didn’t think you were capable of spinning like that.
Still, no cigar. Take it from me (*auto-snark*) white folks drink & drive just as much as Latinos do. If that’s what they’re looking for, they should be looking all over Santa Ana. And maybe save the neighborhoods with easily-intimidated immigrants until AFTER the census.
[PS If you learn to spell just one word today, make it “catch.” “Cath” is short for catheter.]
they should be looking all over Santa Ana. And maybe save the neighborhoods with easily-intimidated immigrants until AFTER the census.
Yeah, god forbid that non-citizens/illegal aliens would not benifit from the census!
Man no wonder America has weaken in strength and character..some people who have had the fortune to be born in this country have no idea what an American Citizens is, they also have no respect for the people that hold the title “American Citizen”.
Great, Quinn’s back. Someone want to explain to her how the census works?
Hello from Santa Ana,
I found out how the census works at a meeting for the American Indian title 7 grant-OUSD…A very nice white man was giving advice in regards to making sure under race you listed yourself American Indian..he wanted to make sure that Amerian indians were not UNREPRESENTED!!
Other words the more representation, the more likely it was to receive federal funds!!
funny thing is he was as white as me who intended to check the American indian box…he had indian blood though!
The census has become a way to get federal money -using who ever!
🙂 Nite Vern -Missed ya!