Fresno Cracks Down on DUI
|
|
Police in Fresno are throwing up roadblocks, conducting stakeouts and using night-vision goggles, satellite tracking devices and video cameras in an extraordinary crackdown aimed not at terrorists or drug lords, but at drunken drivers. The muscular tactics have made Fresno one of the toughest cities in America for those who dare to get behind the wheel after drinking. “This is a chronic problem and we’re trying to attack it from all different angles,” said Detective Mark Van Wyhe. While police say the four-year-old crackdown has yielded a dramatic drop in deadly car accidents, bars and restaurants complain it is hurting business and putting a damper on Fresno’s nightlife. And defense attorneys and civil liberties advocates warn that the city of 461,000 has gone too far. “The enforcement is so tight here and it’s worth so much money to them that it clouds the judgment of the arresting officers,” said Kendall Simsarian, a Fresno defense attorney who works on driving-under-the-influence cases. “It takes less and less of a reason to get pulled over.” Among other things, Fresno police are putting undercover officers near bars to watch for drinkers stumbling to their cars. They are setting up multiple drunken-driving checkpoints, sometimes even on weeknights. And they are surreptitiously planting Global Positioning System devices on the cars of convicted drunken drivers to monitor whether they are going to bars or liquor stores in violation of their probation or parole. |