Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Bradley arrested her, called in backup to deal with her car, and took the woman to the police station on Elm Street.

Ontario generally staffs between four and 13 officers for a saturation patrol. Their 58 details are part of 338 checkpoint and saturation patrols that will occur this holiday season in San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and Ventura counties.

"It's a full moon out tonight behind those clouds. His final tally for the night was five cars pulled over, two DUI suspects arrested and two arrests made for outstanding warrants.

Both the checkpoints and patrols do not decrease the amount of officers on regular patrol. That means they might take a very wide or a very tight turn, sometimes sideswiping another vehicle.

When the average citizen gets behind read more the wheel, the focus is all about the destination -- getting from Point A to Point B.

"It is one of my favorite activities that I really hope one day I don't have to do anymore," Bradley said.

"I can only assume people are walking because they want to be safe, and (don't want) to risk their lives or other people's lives by driving," he said. Depending on a court's decision, the woman could face between four days and six months in county jail, $1,800 to $4,000 in fines and penalties, three to five years of probation and a required class of three, six or nine months.

"I enjoy doing (DUI patrols) because I think when cops arrest a DUI suspect, they are preventing a felony from occurring," Bradley said.. San Bernardino tends to have eight to 10 officers working the patrols, costing roughly $7,400 in grant money per operation, according to Cervantes.

But when Lodi police Cpl. Fred Alvarez, citing the abundance of parties this time of year.

Bradley has lived in Lodi for 10 years, but has been a member of the Lodi Police Department for 14 years. During his time on the police force, he has served on patrol, worked gang enforcement and spent more than six years as a member of various investigative units.

That makes for a long and unforgiving workday. Then Bradley slowly moved his finger toward her nose and watched as the woman tried to keep her eyes focused on it. He was promoted to corporal in February. Would these long hours lead to any arrests? And what other kinds of criminal activity might Bradley run into while pulling over suspicious vehicles?

At a brightly lit intersection, an officer asked to see a driver’s license, gave a subtle sniff of the motorist’s breath and looked for any obvious signs of intoxication. Back on the road, Bradley pulls over to grab a burrito from Taqueria El Grullense on Sacramento Street, then pulls into a quiet lot on Lockeford Street to watch traffic and eat dinner. Sunday, Bradley's entire focus was on watching for erratically moving cars and assessing potentially intoxicated drivers.

This doesn't account for other potential expenses, including lost work time, any bail fees, or the costs of injury or damage a driver convicted of a DUI might have caused.

AN ARREST IN THE FIELD

Then there's sit-and-wait, where Bradley parks in a quiet lot on a busy street and closely watches cars passing by.

During the patrols, officers drive around town, usually in high-trafficked areas or near nightlife, and search for driver’s showing signs of impairment.

To Bradley, that's a job well done.

They're driving badly. Ryan Morales will be arraigned on counts of second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence.

Saturation patrols, in contrast, send the officers out to streets, allowing them to concentrate just on the drivers who show signs of intoxication.

The only thing separating a misdemeanor DUI and a felony offense is that the misdemeanor cases don't hurt anyone else, he said.

Oh, and one meth pipe thrown out the window of a car just before Bradley pulled it over.

The woman's result was well over the legal limit of 0.08 blood-alcohol content, even after several tests. It didn't work.

Finally, a walking test. For DUIs, that's the major thoroughfares of Lodi.

Between moments of adrenaline-fueled activity, this is the shift: staying continue calm and watching closely.

A few minutes after 6:30 p.m., Bradley was seatbelted into his cruiser and scanning the treeline in Lawrence Park read more with a car-mounted flashlight. Or tried to. Or they'll do the opposite: Stop at a green light, or lingering too long at a stop sign as though they are waiting for the light to change.

Advertisement

Those answers are never clear ahead of time, but this is actually an ideal shift for Bradley.

That's the organization that funds dozens of DUI checkpoints every year, where police officers set up shop in the middle of the road to check licenses and talk to drivers face-to-face.

“The holidays are kind of the high peak,” said Ontario Cprl. Like anyone else out hunting, officers have to look where the highest concentration of targets is likely to be. Let's see what we get," Bradley said.

Bradley is happy to keep pulling dangerous drivers off the road, no matter what monetary costs they might have to pay. "That makes me feel like we as police officers are doing our jobs and getting the right read more messages out."

Friday night’s checkpoint in Ontario was one of 58 DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols police in San Bernardino County have scheduled for December as part of an aggressive “Winter Holiday DUI Campaign.”

Due to a language barrier and the woman's inebriated state, it was difficult to explain the test. His time was paid for by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety.

“There’s generally more arrests on patrols,” she said.

Ontario and San Bernardino hosted checkpoints read more Friday but the majority of the 58 enforcement details are saturation patrols, reflecting a larger trend of departments choosing patrols over checkpoints, which require more manpower and space.

The shift ran over time by two hours, keeping Bradley away from home and a warm bed until after 4:30 a.m. Eric Bradley climbs into the front seat of his department-issued Ford Explorer, he has a different mission in mind: to locate potentially dangerous drivers and get them off the road.

On a recent Saturday night, Bradley took on an extra shift to conduct a DUI saturation patrol. Saturday to 2:30 a.m. If drivers passed the brief test, they were waved through. He pulled the yellow box containing the testing kit out of the back of his Explorer.

Next, a balance test. The driver was instructed to walk heel to toe for nine steps, turn around and walk back. The grants pay officers overtime to work the enforcement operations.

Or maybe it means the police department is doing well in educating the public.

While on patrol, Bradley searches for intoxicated drivers using a kind of hybrid technique.

Now he's a patrol officer, a member of the auxiliary bike team and a public information officer.

Bradley knew it was time for a Breathalyzer test. If not, police escorted them across the street for further questioning.

There, she was booked into the jail for a few hours. Loud music blares through the speakers from the FM 98.5 Rock radio station.

He compared being on patrol to a kind of urban hunting trip. But with the help of one of the woman's friends standing nearby, Bradley administered the test.

A Lodi man is currently awaiting trial for an October 2013 collision that took the lives of six members of the Miranda family: the father, the mother, her unborn child and three young children. It could potentially save lives, he said.

A woman in a black jacket and jeans stepped out of the driver's seat, unaware that a police officer had pulled up behind her. Bradley approached her and began a round of simple tests.

First, the eye test. Bradley held up a finger and the driver followed it with her eyes. Drunken drivers tend to be incapable of maintaining a steady speed, and have a hard time judging distances. She made it about seven steps, then clumsily lost count and turned too soon.

These are the kinds of cases Bradley hopes DUI patrols can prevent. The woman stood on one leg while facing upward with her eyes closed and counting out 30 seconds. The federal government funds the checkpoints and San Bernardino’s grant, Cervantes said, requires them to hold at least one enforcement operation during the holiday season.

There's free patrol, where he drives up and down Ham Lane, Kettleman Lane, Cherokee Lane and Lower Sacramento Road, as well as a few of the busier side streets and through Downtown.

"If I don't locate a DUI, it makes me wonder how many I missed," he said.

For example, San Bernardino hosted 18 or 20 checkpoints in 2013 and 12 in 2014, according to Cervantes.

Thanks to these patrols and the ever-watchful eyes of officers on patrol, Lodi police arrested 282 people on DUI charges in 2013.

While heading south on Cherokee Lane from Turner Road at around 8 p.m., Bradley spotted a car that showed at least three signs the driver could be under the influence.

If any other officers on the shift pulled over a drunken driving suspect, they were instructed to call Bradley and get him on the case.

“We’re going to do our best to keep the people safe this holiday season,” said Vicki Cervantes, a San Bernardino police traffic sergeant, who was also working a checkpoint Friday night.

While on that Saturday night patrol, Bradley noticed groups of people walking home from Downtown, and climbing into cabs outside of bars and tasting rooms.

San Bernardino County’s operations are part of a larger crackdown on impaired drivers. A report had come in of an read more intoxicated man walking near the park, but there was no one around who matched the description.

When the driver pulled a fast left turn into the Franco's Pizza parking lot, failing to yield to oncoming traffic and forcing other drivers to slam on their brakes, Bradley flipped on his lights and followed.

From 6:30 p.m. Her foot hit the ground several times, and she didn't estimate the time passing properly.

HITTING THE STREETS

But what is he looking for? What are these drivers doing that indicate to Bradley that they may have had one too many drinks to be out on the road?

Sometimes DUI suspects will stop past the limit line at an intersection or run a red light. Sunday