Crime & Safety

DUI Crackdown Ends With 12 Arrests in Palo Alto and a 14 Percent Increase in County

With money for patrols, the 18-day end-of-summer / Labor Day weekend campaign against drunken driving resulted in 441 arrests county-wide, including double the number of DUI warrants and no fatalities.

Santa Clara County law enforcement's 18-day summer crackdown on drunken driving ended Monday, with 441 arrests, including 12 in Palo Alto, according to county sheriff's Sgt. Troy Smith.

"We had no DUI fatalities this year, which is always a positive," Smith said. Last year, there was one. 

The traditional "Avoid the 13" campaign was part of an end-of-summer/Labor Day mobilization that covered the back-to-school period for many districts.

Find out what's happening in Palo Altowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This year saw a 14 percent increase in arrests for "DUI," or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 

It's not necessarily that there are more drunken drivers on the road, Smith said. There was a lot of enforcement this year, too. Some agencies had money for more patrols available at the end of a budget year, he explained.

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Drivers were thus the focus of checkpoints and extra "saturation patrols" devoted solely to looking for reckless and suspected drunk drivers, with the help of state funding to pay for extra police shifts.

"This was the end of it, so we needed to get them all out there," Smith said, referring to funds. "That's why we had so many patrols going."

County-wide, sheriffs, city police departments, California Highway Patrol and state university police arrested at least 441 individuals from Aug. 19 through Monday. This represented 54 more arrests over last year's count of 385. And a big portion of that jump came from arrests on DUI warrants. Last year, 17 arrests on DUI warrants were made, and this year it more than doubled to 35 arrests. Warrants are issued for a failure to appear in court, complete a program or pay fines, said Smith

"We just got luckier with the DUI warrants," Smith said. "We had extra money to go out to do those details."

The highest number of arrests in a day came on Saturday, Aug. 28, with 53 arrests made. Perhaps not surprisingly, most arrests were made Fridays to Sundays, ranging from 27 to 53.

County law enforcement agencies expect to run more "Avoid the 13" campaigns this year, including Halloween, Thanksgiving weekend and the December holiday period, Smith said.

The data below show arrests made on Labor Day and the cumulative total for the 18-day period beginning Aug. 19. The numbers are provisional, as some agencies may have missed a reporting day during the 18-day period.

 

Agency

Labor Day Arrests

Total

Campbell PD

3

10

CHP - Hollister-Gilroy*

2

40

CHP – San Jose*

7

113

Gilroy PD

1

12

Los Altos PD

0

2

Los Gatos PD

No report

10

Milpitas PD

2

24

Morgan Hill PD

1

10

Mountain View PD

0

15

Palo Alto PD

1

12

San Jose PD

7

106

Santa Clara PD

2

18

Santa Clara Co. Sheriff*

2

30

Sunnyvale PD 1 29

San Jose State Univ. PD

1

8

Total 

30

441

*These numbers do not include specific details about arrests made by these agencies. The county sheriff contracts with the communities of Cupertino, Los Altos Hills, Saratoga and polices the unincorporated areas of the county. Similarly, both CHP office cover large jurisdictions. 


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