DUI Checkpoint advice.........Possibility for general police stops in Indiana?

[rhino]

I went out looking for impaired drivers last night on grant-funded overtime. I actively patrolled for less than an hour and found two very drunk drivers.

. . . and then you made them drive to the DUI checkpoint, right?

 

[VUPDblue]

. . . and then you made them drive to the DUI checkpoint, right?

I mean, what else is there to do with them?

 

[Trigger Time]

I went out looking for impaired drivers last night on grant-funded overtime. I actively patrolled for less than an hour and found two very drunk drivers.

Thank you

 

[printcraft]

I have an answer for funding.....

 

[Fargo]

DUI checkpoints are the triumph of "Won't you think of the children?" over "The right of the people to be secure in their persons...".

IMO itis a publicity stunt.

You have 10-20 cops standing around who get 1-2 drunks in a night. The cops actually patrolling generally do 10 to 1 what the checkpoint does, without any constitutional issues.

 

[VUPDblue]

DUI checkpoints are the triumph of "Won't you think of the children?" over "The right of the people to be secure in their persons...".

IMO itis a publicity stunt.

You have 10-20 cops standing around who get 1-2 drunks in a night. The cops actually patrolling generally do 10 to 1 what the checkpoint does, without any constitutional issues.

Yep. 100% PR campaign. In Marion County we average less than 10 drunks per checkpoint. I bet we’d get 30+ with the same number of cops patrolling for them.

 

[actaeon277]

I made the mistake of being on Facebook and pointing out the problems of checkpoints, and how the manpower would be better used in patrols.
All I got was, "for the children", "why do I want to drive drunk", "if I had a family member killed by a drunk", and many others.
Basically, cause I'm against checkpoints, I want drunk drivers to run over people.

 

[Liberty Sanders]

And to add to it....

Wouldn't the money on officer's pay/overtime be better spent with the officers spread throughout the city, trying to find drunk drivers?


It was for exactly this reason that my agency (Cincinnati PD) did not do this.

I learned early in my career that the hallmark of government is expending great effort to make it appear that you are doing something about a problem while accomplishing absolutely nothing. DUI checkpoints are political theater, not law enforcement.

 

[actaeon277]

And to add to it....

Wouldn't the money on officer's pay/overtime be better spent with the officers spread throughout the city, trying to find drunk drivers?

It was for exactly this reason that my agency (Cincinnati PD) did not do this.

I learned early in my career that the hallmark of government is expending great effort to make it appear that you are doing something about a problem while accomplishing absolutely nothing. DUI checkpoints are political theater, not law enforcement.

To bad "theater" works. The people should be up in arms, but they are stuck on the appearances rather than actual results.

 

[Liberty Sanders]

To bad "theater" works. The people should be up in arms, but they are stuck on the appearances rather than actual results.

"... but they are stuck on the appearances rather than actual results."

This is the philosophy of the head of every government agency in the country.

 

[actaeon277]

"... but they are stuck on the appearances rather than actual results."

This is the philosophy of the head of every government agency in the country.

Because it works, unfortunately.

 

[Liberty Sanders]

Here is a little tale concerning the basic topic here that might be of interest.

There was a veteran sergeant in my agency who was a legendary undercover drug operative. He had a network of informants and information sources that would have been the envy of the KGB. He used his skills not in penny-ante arrests to up statistics but to make major interdictions of drug shipments. His appearance with long hair and beard was such that I’ll call him “Sgt. Werewolf.”

Was he in charge of any of our drug enforcement? He was not, for Sgt. Werewolf cared nothing for butt-kissing or the cultivation of “rabbis” in high places. His operation consisted of himself, working out of one of our stations, with two subordinates who were essentially his apprentices.

One time one of our assistant chiefs (Colonel Arrogance) decided he was not getting enough news coverage so he called a grand press conference in which he announced the deployment of (yet another) anti-drug unit that was going to eliminate the drug problem in our city. The purpose of this was to pad his resume so that he could retire from our agency and hopefully find a chief’s job elsewhere.

But there was a problem. After his new unit had been operating for some period of time Col. Arrogance found that Sgt. Werewolf and his acolytes (3 People) were pulling in more POUNDS of interdicted drugs and bad people than the new unit (1 lieutenant, 4 sergeants and 20 troops) COMBINED. This was not owing to either incompetence or lack of enthusiasm of these officers. They were simply outclassed by a master of his craft who WOULD have been commanding them if our agency operated on integrity and not brown-nosing.

Sgt. Werewolf got a phone call from Col. Arrogance. Col. Arrogance said, “You are making my unit look bad. From now on when you get information from an informant about a drug shipment you will turn it over to my unit.”

Anyone who knows anything about such operations knows (and high-ranking police officials generally know next to nothing about street law enforcement) that you don’t simply “turn over” informants to people outside your operation. People get dead that way.

Sgt. Werewolf conducted an operation that weekend and interdicted a truckload of drugs. The performance art drug unit was not involved.

That Monday morning I dragged myself into my office (I was permanently assigned to first shift, which I despise, to reward me for my service with the NRA Board of Directors) where I found Sgt. Werewolf, minus his beard and most of his hair and clad in uniform.

I gazed quizzically. “Morning, Lieutenant. I work for you now,” he said. He then explained that which I have outlined above.

Sgt. Werewolf was a crackerjack uniformed shift supervisor. But in the job in which he excelled he was a magician.

Multiply the philosophy that resulted in this man’s transfer by the approximately 18,000 local police agencies in the US and it becomes far easier to understand the existence of DUI checkpoints.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

It probably won't surprise anybody to learn that this stuff isn't limited to PDs. A number of years ago, we had some issue going on at the plant. I don't even remember what it was now but it was some maintenance/process issue that we were having a difficult time figuring out. It was intermittent and sporadic. It was one of those things you just had to wait for it to break before you could fix it unless you happened to be standing there when it happened and was looking at the right thing at the right time. I came back from lunch on our manager stopped me and asked for a status. Well...waiting for an event wasn't good enough. Just do something I was told. It doesn't even matter if it does anything. Just make it look like you're doing something.

So we did. We get paid the same if we're doing something productive as we do sitting around looking like we're doing something productive.

 

[Drail]

"What can we appear to be doing about this problem without actually doing anything?" Theodore Roosevelt. A good politician.

 

[edporch]

If they were trying to catch drunk drivers, instead of "showing the flag", they'd have those same officers spread all over the town/city and actually pulling over people that are showing signs of drunk driving.

You know, that whole "presumption of innocence", probable cause, reasonable articulable suspicion, and all that.


Instead, they do the checkpoints so the public thinks something is being done. Doesn't matter that it's not the efficient thing, just that "we have to do SOMETHING".

Yes, I remember several years back reading an article (Lafayette Journal & Courier?) where police were saying they do at least as good a job catching intoxicated drivers by patrolling and looking out for drivers that appear intoxicated as they do with road blocks.

 

[DCR]

Potemkin Village

From Dilbert
The Problem - Dilbert to Pointy Haired Boss - "We're so understaffed that the project is six weeks behind schedule."
The Analysis - PHB - "I can't add people, I can't change the due date, I can't ignore it."
The Result - Dilbert to team - "He wants hourly status reports until the situation improves."

 

[Rookie]

Potemkin Village

From Dilbert
The Problem - Dilbert to Pointy Haired Boss - "We're so understaffed that the project is six weeks behind schedule."
The Analysis - PHB - "I can't add people, I can't change the due date, I can't ignore it."
The Result - Dilbert to team - "He wants hourly status reports until the situation improves."

This happens EVERY DAY at my plant!

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Potemkin Village

From Dilbert
The Problem - Dilbert to Pointy Haired Boss - "We're so understaffed that the project is six weeks behind schedule."
The Analysis - PHB - "I can't add people, I can't change the due date, I can't ignore it."
The Result - Dilbert to team - "He wants hourly status reports until the situation improves."

This happens EVERY DAY at my plant!

BTDT.

 

[russc2542]

As my wife found out after starting a real job after school, Dilbert's cute and funny when your young. It's terrefyingly accurate after you start an office job, even more so if you're around engineering (we both work for the engineering side of Cummins so yea...)

I'm pretty sure all of America runs on the Peter Principle: hey, you're good at what you're doing. To reward you, you're promoted to NOT do what you're good at.

 

[chipbennett]

Yep. 100% PR campaign. In Marion County we average less than 10 drunks per checkpoint. I bet we’d get 30+ with the same number of cops patrolling for them.

Unfortunately, the officer at I-70 west of Holt Rd. was just a few minutes late, Sunday morning. Thankfully, he apprehended the drunk-driving illegal, but unfortunately, not before Indianapolis lost an Uber driver and a beloved, if not well-known, Colts player.

(DUI checkpoints do absolutely nothing to deter such miscreants as that drunk driver.)