St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Monday this year, and that means that a lot of holiday revelers spent the weekend prior celebrating. Drinking is synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, and law enforcement held DUI checkpoints all over the city in order to deter those who might choose to drink and drive, as well as attempt to catch those who do.
One such checkpoint was held in La Mirada from 7 p.m. Friday evening until 2 a.m. Saturday morning and resulted in 14 arrests being made.
LASD deputies operating out of the Norwalk Sheriff’s Station screened over 1,500 cars during the checkpoint’s hours of operation and arrested two individuals on suspicion of drunk driving, seven for driving without a license and another five for driving on suspended licenses.
The same evening, another checkpoint was held by deputies operating out of the Pico Rivera Station, though the results of the checkpoint were not available at the time this blog was written.
DUI checkpoints are held not only to catch drunk drivers in the act, but also serve as a warning to individuals who would choose to operate a motor vehicle while intoxicated. To further deter would-be drunk drivers, the dates and times of the checkpoints are often released ahead of time – a practice which is hotly debated within the law enforcement community.
On the one hand, proponents of such announcements state that creating public awareness of law enforcement’s crackdown on drunk driving helps convince people to find alternative methods for getting home, as opposed to getting behind the wheel themselves. Detractors state that announcing checkpoints beforehand prompts those who choose to drive drunk to simply find alternative routes for getting home.
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