Santa Ana to Target Worst Drunk Drivers

SANTA ANA —  Pledging to get the “worst of the worst” among drunk drivers, city police and state officials Tuesday announced an aggressive new program to track down and arrest repeat offenders who shrug off court appearances and driver’s license suspensions.

The model program, the first of its kind in the nation, will use a state grant to cover the costs of hunting down the more than 300 Santa Ana drivers who have open drunk-driving warrants and three or more arrests for the offense within the last seven years.

“The system has not found them and made them responsible,” Lt. Felix Osuna said of the program, now underway. “And that is our challenge. . . . These people are bullets out there looking for a mark.”

The $374,000 grant will also pay to add a patrol officer dedicated exclusively to catching drunk drivers, and will create a one-semester drunk-driving education program that will be offered to local high schools.

If the program is a success, the model will be duplicated next year in other California cities and beyond, according to Arthur L. Anderson, director of the state office of traffic safety.

“This is the first of its kind anywhere in the country, and we will be very interested in the results,” said Anderson, whose agency provided the grant. He added that drivers with suspended licenses are four times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident, a “mind-boggling statistic” that shows the need to follow up on their arrest warrants.

During a Tuesday news conference to debut the program, police cited a Mothers Against Drunk Driving study that showed Santa Ana had more drunk driving arrests and injury accidents in 1995 per square mile than any other Orange County city.

Those numbers show the city has the drunk-driving problem that plagues many metropolitan areas, but also has a police force that places a high priority of arresting those offenders, Sgt. Gary L. Sterzer said.

Still, staffing and time limitations seldom allow officers to seek out the repeat offenders who try to side step the court system, so arrests are typically made when those drivers happen to be stopped for other offenses, Osuna said.

“These are violent offenders in our eyes,” Osuna said. “This will allow us to get them off the street.”

The grant will pay for hiring an extra officer and an analyst, overtime, computers and the research it will take to identify the city’s most flagrant repeat offenders. It will also fund sobriety checkpoints and the impounding of offenders’ vehicles.

The department has made more than 1,400 arrests for driving under the influence in each of the last two years. Last year, 19 people died in Santa Ana crashes attributed to drunk driving, up from 18 in 1995, Osuna said.

In Orange County, there were 2,655 injury accidents attributed to drunk driving, and 53 deaths. Statewide, about 4,000 people were killed in crashes involving drunk driving.

Reidel Post, executive director of MADD in Orange County, said the concerted effort to capture drunk drivers before they have the chance to drive again is a progressive and welcome initiative.

Drunk-driving deaths in Orange County are half the total they reached in 1990, Post said, but “career drunk drivers” are still active. She noted several high-profile cases of fatal crashes in which repeat offenders were behind the wheel, seemingly undaunted by license suspensions or warnings.

Besides collaring wanted drivers, the grant will create a high school program to students a glimpse of the tragedy left in the wake of drunk-driving crashes, Osuna said. Students will be seated in a device that simulates crash impact, participate in a mock trial and assume the roles of officers informing families about the deaths of loved ones.

The grant will assign Officer Colleen Taylor to patrol exclusively in search of drunk drivers. She will join fellow Officer Greg Maciha, who has led all Orange County officers in drunk-driving arrests with more than 300 suspects taken into custody in each of the last two years.

“The way I look at it, every arrest might save a life,” Maciha said.

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Collision Course Santa Ana and Stanton were easily the most dangerous cities in Orange County in 1995 when measured by the number of collisions per square mile that caused death or injury and involved drunk driving. The top 10:

Santa Ana: 9.6

Stanton: 9.4

Garden Grove: 6.5

Anaheim: 5.9

Costa Mesa: 5.2

La Habra: 5.0

Buena Park: 4.9

Westminster: 4.7

Fullerton: 4.6

Orange: 4.4

Source: Mothers Against Drunk Driving