ONE FOR THE ROAD : Despite Crackdown Warning, Fullerton Police Pack Jail With Suspected Drunk Drivers

The warning signs were posted in Fullerton bars and liquor stores all week. Police passed out flyers, got stories published in a local newspaper and got the word out on cable TV: They would be out in force Saturday night, cracking down on drunk drivers.

With that kind of publicity, you would have expected Fullerton streets to be empty of anything but teetotalers that night.

Not a chance. By night’s end, police had filled their city jail with 15 suspected drunk drivers and six more who were arrested for allegedly being drunk while in a car.

To Fullerton Police Lt. Bud Lathrop, those figures add up to more of a communications failure than an enforcement success. The last time the department had a drunk-driving crackdown, there was no advance publicity--and officers made just 12 arrests, he said.

“The program failed miserably,” Lathrop said. “I guess nobody got the word.”

The first suspected drunk driver, a well-dressed man who appeared to be in his late 40s, was brought into the Fullerton police station on Commonwealth Avenue at 8:45 p.m. Police said his car had been straddling the center line.

The man was questioned and asked to empty his pockets, one of which contained $2,900. He was then given a choice between a blood test, a urine test and a breath test to determine his blood alcohol level, with .10% being too drunk to drive.

He chose the blood test.

“We prefer that they take a blood or urine test,” Lathrop said, explaining that with a breath test, there is no hard evidence left over--other than a police report--to prove the suspect’s innocence or guilt at trial.

$1,600 fine

The man was then fingerprinted and escorted to a padded cell in the city jail where he could sleep. He was to be released--when judged sober by police--with a citation for $1,600.

Sgt. Roger White, who ferried suspected drunk drivers from the streets back to the station all night, said they generally do not have much trouble with drunks resisting the processing.

“If you treat them with respect, usually they respect you,” White said, “but if you treat them badly, then they react badly.”

About 10:30 p.m., White rolled onto the scene of a drunk-driving arrest near Brookhurst Road and Commonwealth Avenue. The man being questioned said he had come from a wedding reception and was looking for the Riverside Freeway but had driven right under it on Brookhurst and was heading straight into the Beatrice Foods plant past Commonwealth.

Officer Don Kendrick asked the man, who appeared to be in his late 30s, how much he had to drink that night.

About 2 1/2 six-packs, the man answered. Fifteen beers.

“Why are you questioning me? You’re just going to take me in anyway,” he said.

Kendrick asked the man to perform several balancing tests. When he had to close his eyes, he almost fell to the ground.

“I want you to walk heel to toe in a straight line eight steps that way, then 10 steps back,” Kendrick said. The suspect proceeded to walk 12 weaving steps each way.

“I asked you to take eight steps that way, then 10 steps back,” Kendrick said. “How many did you take?”

“Twelve,” the man responded.

Kendrick gave him a second chance. Again, he walked 12 steps each way.

As he was being led to Sgt. White’s car for the trip to the city jail, the man said, “I’m not so (fouled) up I can’t stop at the red lights. Oh well, this ain’t the first time.” He had been arrested for drunk driving in 1985, he said.

By 10:51, Fullerton police had arrested five drunk drivers, and the next couple of hours were busy.

A lull set in about about 12:30 a.m. and lasted until a couple in their early 20s were pulled over about 1:30 a.m. They were fighting in the parking lot of a bar when they saw the officers and drove off in a Mercedes, Kendrick said.

After officers pulled the couple over, the woman began screaming something about not letting “them” take her baby. She later told police that she has a baby in the intensive care ward of a hospital.

She was also pregnant.

White took the couple back to the jail at 1:41 a.m.

By then, the once-quiet jail had become a writhing mass of bodies. There were drunks in every nook and cranny. Suspects were getting their blood taken. The pregnant woman was screaming that she should get one phone call and was slamming her fists on the glass window of the jailer’s office.

One woman was in tears because she did not want to go back with “the crazies” in the women’s holding cell.

All the traffic officers came in for the night about 2 a.m., White said, so they could begin their paper work.

“They wouldn’t do any more good,” White said. The station was already packed to capacity.