Fresno police chief revives controversial ‘bar watch’ program to combat DUIs

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer announced Monday he’s reviving the controversial “bar watch” program in which undercover officers monitor drinking establishments and arrest suspected drunken drivers.

The program, ended during the recession due to budget cuts, will be back in operation by the New Year’s Eve holiday and continue, he said.

“We’re not going to allow that individual who is intoxicated to get into the car,” Dyer said at a news conference. Traffic officers will also follow drivers who might be intoxicated and will stop those driving erratically, he said.

It’s all part of a broader effort by police to change the culture in Fresno about drinking and driving, Dyer said. “It’s not about the numbers, it’s about the people. People killed in traffic collision are folks like you and me … who are driving through an intersection, someone runs a red light, that individual is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and takes away an individual from a family.”

Dyer said he’s boosting the number of officers assigned to the traffic division to 51, up from 40, and traffic enforcement will take place seven days a week starting next year. And police will start doing more anti-DUI operations such as checkpoints, from 44 this year to 75 next year.

“It’s not OK to consume alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car,” Dyer said. “We’re going to send a very strong message regarding DUIs in our city.”

The number of traffic fatalities per year hit a low of 27 in 2010 after several years of aggressive traffic enforcement helped change the city’s culture, Dyer said, and stayed at about 30 per year. There were 33 traffic-related deaths in 2016.

But this year the total is 48 traffic deaths, including 23 pedestrian deaths.

“I think what we have seen in the city is that culture that we once had changed, is changing again for the worse,” Dyer said. That’s why he’s bringing back bar watch and increasing DUI checkpoints.

Bar owner Pete Mejia of Fresno said he questions the wisdom of officers hanging around outside drinking establishments waiting for something to happen.

“We’ve got murder, we’ve got gang stuff going on,” he said. “Where’s the concentration on that?”

Mejia also said DUI checkpoints are ineffective in the era of social media because people post where they are so their friends and the public can avoid them.

Dyer said “there’s good and bad” with the location of DUI checkpoints being spread around on social media. “The good news is they are spreading the news about having DUI checkpoints in the city. That is raising the awareness of individuals out there who are contemplating driving intoxicated. Just because we have a DUI checkpoint at one location doesn’t mean we don’t have a checkpoint at another location, or having a saturation patrol at another part of the city.”

There were 3,200 drunk driving arrests in one year at the peak of police enforcement, but only 1,400 drunk driving arrests this year so far, Dyer said. He said he expects the number of such arrests to go up to about 2,500 next year.

“We will change that culture again,” Dyer said. “It may take us all year, it may take us two years. But we will change that culture again.”

Dyer said the catalyst for Monday’s announcement were the deaths of five people in three vehicle accidents in a 12-hour period between Friday afternoon and Saturday:

▪ Friday afternoon at Tulare and Willow avenues, a car made a left turn into the path of a motorcycle and the driver and passenger on the motorcycle, Refugio Cedillo, 45, and Tanya Shaw, 42, died. The case is under investigation but the driver was not under in the influence of drugs or alcohol, police said.

▪ About 2:42 a.m. Saturday, a man driving as fast as 100 mph on East Kings Canyon Road who later admitted that he’d been drinking hit a car driven by a man delivering The Fresno Bee. The collision killed the carrier and his wife, Daniel Mendez, 53, and Ramona Mendez, 43.

▪ Less than a half-hour later, 58-year-old bicyclist James Raby was riding in the bike lane from his job at a restaurant and was hit from behind by a car and killed. The driver left the scene and his car, with blood on the hood, was stopped by police and the driver arrested. He had a blood alcohol of .11 and was arrested for felony DUI, Dyer said.

“That’s five people who won’t be spending time with their families during Christmas,” Dyer said. “That’s children who will be spending this year’s Christmas without their parents.”

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 4:27 PM with the headline "Fresno police chief revives controversial ‘bar watch’ program to combat DUIs."