Calm Holiday Takes Police by Surprise

By JEFF GOTTLIEB and GREG RISLING

Jan. 2, 2000 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

The SWAT officer dressed in fatigues and munching on cookies at 1 a.m. in the Anaheim police station said it best: “We were ready for war and it didn’t happen.”

With a massive police presence across Orange County, even the crooks stayed home for the dawn of the new millennium, resulting in the safest New Year’s holiday in memory. The number of emergency calls tumbled, along with freeway accidents and other incidents.

In Anaheim, 911 calls ran at about half of last New Year’s levels. In Costa Mesa, no one was arrested between 11 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday.

The California Highway Patrol reported no fatal freeway accidents in the county between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day--a period that usually sees five to seven such crashes.

“We planned for the worst and hoped for the best,” said Newport Beach police Sgt. Pete Perrin. “It looks like we got the best.”

Things were so slow in Laguna Beach that officials shut down their emergency operations center at 2 a.m. Saturday, and a couple of hours later cut the number of additional officers it had planned to put on the street.

“It’s kind of like the letdown after the hype,” said Tustin police Lt. Christine George, whose department received 10 calls all night--far less than average. “It’s either rain or people are using common sense for a change.”

In Santa Ana, Orange County’s most populous city, there was only one arrest for drunken driving, a figure so low that a stunned Sgt. Raul Luna had to double-check it with the jail.

With little activity and police departments throughout the county geared up with more than double the number of officers on duty for a normal night, there wasn’t much opportunity for mischief. Take the burglary suspect in Anaheim.

The city’s usual Friday deployment of 40 officers swelled to more than 250 in anticipation of rowdy New Year’s celebrations. None materialized, and there were plenty of officers available to respond to a call about a man clambering up a ladder onto a second-floor apartment balcony. Nearly 20 patrol cars converged as the suspect fled by motorcycle, skidded on a rain-slicked street and fell before running off. He was found minutes later hiding in shrubbery.

“On our priority calls, it was just unbelievable,” Santa Ana’s Luna said. “We’d end up with a helicopter and all kinds of police officers showing up. It was not uncommon not to have just two cars responding but three, four and five units arriving quite rapidly.”

Authorities said the cool, wet weather, along with warnings of an increased police presence and reports of potential Y2K problems may have kept revelers off the streets. “I think the media hyped this thing beyond expectation and it frightened some people,” said Buena Park Police Lt. Robert Chaney.

Throughout the county, police departments staffed up for the New Year’s Eve to beat all New Year’s Eves, preparing for everything from public disorder to malfunctioning traffic lights to terrorist threats. Instead of action, they got boredom. The situation is similar to the drop in crime that accompanied heightened security during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“It seemed like there were so many police officers working here [New Year’s Eve], every other car was a police vehicle,” said Seal Beach police Sgt. Ron LaVelle.

An Early Night for Some Officers

Huntington Beach had 100 officers patrolling the streets at night, but the lack of criminal activity prompted the department to send some officers home early. The department had planned to more than double the usual Saturday staffing of 35 officers, but the additional 40 officers were told early Saturday not to bother, Lt. Louis Ochoa said.

Sixty-five officers patrolled Santa Ana’s streets Friday night instead of the usual 40. Another 65 to 70 were waiting at the station, just in case. The SWAT team and Mobile Field Force Unit, specially trained in crowd control, were at a staging area and ready to go anywhere in the county.

The lower crime rate doesn’t mean that the year 2000 ushered in an era of peace and love, at least not in Orange County. There are still people who believe that firing a gun into the air is good fun, rather than potentially deadly.

Two people in Santa Ana were hit with celebratory bullets, which may have come from as far as Garden Grove, Tustin or Orange. A security guard was lucky, and the bullet lodged in his shoe, causing just a welt and bleeding to his right foot.

The second shooting was more serious. Three men were standing under a tree near the entrance of the New Life Church shortly after services had ended. Five minutes into the New Year they heard a whoosh through the tree, and 29-year-old Edward Arrendando fell to the ground clutching his head. Police said the bullet did not penetrate his skull. Paramedics took him to Western Medical Center.

While city police departments were finding fewer drunk drivers to contend with, the California Highway Patrol was sweeping more of them up on Orange County’s freeways than in previous years. Between 20 and 30 people were arrested for driving under the influence from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Sunday. The upswing, however, came as the CHP deployed a record number of patrol units on the freeways.

In all, Orange County law-enforcement agencies deployed more than 1,000 officers New Year’s Eve--more than double the usual weekend staffing levels.

“We spent the good part of seven months preparing for this,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Valna Wilson. “I think it was worth the effort. If something did happen and we were not prepared, that would have been a thousand times worse.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Quiet Night

Local police report a drop in crime over the New Year’s Eve holiday. Her’s a list of arrests from six O.C. cities from about 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday:

City: Huntington Beach

DUI arrests: 6

All other arrests: 26

City: Laguna Beach

DUI arrests: 0

All other arrests: 2

City: La Habra

DUI arrests: 0

All other arrests: 4

City: La Palma

DUI arrests: 0

All other arrests: 1