Several Orange County law enforcement agencies have announced they are participating in the national, 18-day Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign of special anti-DUI enforcement operations through the end of Labor Day weekend.
But the Santa Ana and Garden Grove police departments are the only ones so far to reveal their mobilizations not only include DUI saturation patrols but DUI/drivers license checkpoints this Saturday (Aug. 25).
The exact location of the Garden Grove sobriety stop has not yet been announced, but SAPD revealed its will be in the 2100 block of Raitt Street Saturday from 9 p.m. through 2:30 a.m.
Besides local municipal police departments, the California Highway Patrol and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which covers unincorporated areas as well as cities under contracts, are participating in Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over through Sept. 3.
Speaking of DUI enforcement, the Buena Park Police Department recently conducted an undercover court sting operation at the North Justice Center in Fullerton.
Between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Aug. 16, officers on stake outs monitored DUI defendants who just had their driver licenses suspended and/or had been ordered by a judge not to drive.
“Seven offenders were followed by officers from courtrooms to their vehicles to ensure that they were not driving,” states a BPPD advisory. “While some offenders complied with the law and had alternate means of transportation, four individuals in court for DUI proceeded to get behind the wheel and drove away from the court house.”
Those folks were quickly stopped by officers, according to the agency, which supplied these stats:
- Two persons cited for suspended/revoked license.
- Three persons cited for never being licensed.
- Five vehicles towed or impounded.
- Two persons arrested for warrants and narcotics charges.
- Eleven additional citations near the court house for state vehicle code violations.
Funding for the sting and Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over operations is provided to each law enforcement agency by separate California Office of Traffic Safety grants, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.