35 of Mobile Jail’s Drunk Tests Voided

Drunk-driving charges will not be filed against about 35 of the 276 suspects rounded up last month in Pacoima by Los Angeles police using a much-heralded mobile jail, authorities said Wednesday.

The drunk-driving cases were voided because cold weather adversely affected the mobile jail’s outdoor breath-testing machines, Deputy City Atty. Marty Vranicar said. Prosecutors filed lesser charges against all but one of the suspects, and no charges were filed in that case, he said.

The cold, especially on the night of Feb. 19, prevented police technicians from testing the breath machines to be sure they were working properly, and prosecutors feared the tests could be challenged in court, Vranicar said.

“Everyone agreed that, since they couldn’t test them, there was no way to tell whether or not an individual machine was experiencing problems that night,” Vranicar said. “So we decided to scrap those readings.”

The cold also caused some of the alcohol in suspects’ breath to condense inside the air tube of one of the unit’s three machines, thus distorting breath samples before they could be measured, police said.

Nevertheless, all but one of those arrests have resulted in prosecution for alleged traffic, vehicle and license registration and probation violations, Vranicar said.

“It’s a new program, you’ve got to expect bugs,” said Sgt. Michael Pattee, who is in charge of the mobile jail. “But no more bugs.”

Police modified the mobile jail after the problems were discovered, and it has been used to process 125 drunk-driving suspects in five nights of operation since then, Pattee said.

The mobile jail is known as the Immediate Booking and Release System, or IBARS. It consists of two converted RTD buses, one a command post and one a jail.

Police say they can make more drunk-driving arrests when IBARS is deployed, usually on a weekend night, because officers spend considerably less time processing suspects.

After authorities learned of the cold weather’s effect on the breath machines, they hung strips of plastic over an open compartment on the outside of the bus in which the breath devices are stored, Pattee said.

The plastic so far has kept the machines at the right temperature, although IBARS has not been used on another night as cold and windy as Feb. 19, the sergeant said.

On that night, representatives of the press, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the state Office of Traffic Safety and Maryland State Police, among others, were invited to observe IBARS, which is now in the second month of an innovative two-year program paid for by federal, state and city funds.

Police expect to deploy IBARS eight to 10 days a month in areas of the city that have high incidences of drunk driving, Pattee said.