Santa Maria - June 2nd, 2008

AVOID The 12 Officers Make 5 Dramtic Arrests Over Santa Maria Rodeo Weekend

33 Beer Open Beer Cans Found In DUI Suspects Car

After a quiet Saturday on DUI patrol around the Santa Maria Rodeo, officers and deputies from the countywide “Avoid the 12” campaign saw a definite increase in impaired driving on Sunday, when one arrest yielded 33 empty beer cans in the back seat.

Handcuffs were ratcheted around the wrists of five men, according to Deputy Win Smith of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Dept., campaign coordinator.  “They were all dramatic arrests,” he said.  UCSB, Allan Hancock College and Guadalupe officers along with CHP officers and sheriff’s deputies rode with the patrol.

• UCSB police officers stopped a drivern making unusual and unsafe U turns, hitting the curb repeatedly.  They stopped him near a school and found that his blood alcohol level was .30, nearly four times the legal limit.  “Another of our strike team members asked to see the driver, because the officer had never seen such a high level of intoxication,” Smith remarked of the unlicensed, uninsured driver with a previous DUI conviction and all those beer cans.
• Another man drifted into the oncoming lane on a two-lane road, nearly hitting a sheriff’s patrol car head-on.  The deputy took evasive action, caught up with the driver and arrested him as well.
• Deputies on patrol inside rodeo grounds noticed a man staggering around, then saw him get onto his motorcycle with his wife, pulled him over and took him into custody.  The driver was nearly twice the legal limit to qualify for arrest.
• A witness phoned in news of an overturned vehicle with the driver walking around by the side of the road.  “He had been drinking in Pismo Beach at a bar and survived with no injuries,” said Smith.
• A Guadalupe police officer and another from Allen Hancock College on their way back to CHP headquarters in Santa Maria for debriefing at the end of their shifts noticed a car all over the road and arrested the man.  “So much for the officers getting off work on time,” he commented.

Avoid the 12, which is funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, plans more saturation patrols during the summer and a DUI crackdown over the Labor Day weekend.

It is a project of all dozen law enforcement agencies in Santa Barbara County.