On a spring morning in 2010, Leticia dropped two of her children at school, and continued on to run errands with her 4-year-old daughter. Then, she was stopped at a checkpoint. According to retired San Diego police officer, Carlos Ronquillo, who was a witness, Escondido was conducting a DUI checkpoint at 9:30 in the morning. Because she did not have a driver's license, Leticia was suspected of being an undocumented immigrant and ICE officials were notified. Ronquillo watched as Leticia was handcuffed and separated from her U.S. citizen daughter. Within hours, she had been taken to an immigration holding facility, processed, and was then deported to Tijuana, Mexico. After living in Escondido for over 10 years, Leticia was separated from her four children.
Located in northeast San Diego County, the city of Escondido has a population of 145,000 and is 49 percent Latino and growing. In the past several years, the city council has enacted ordinances and legislation directly targeting the growing Latino and undocumented immigrant population. In 2006, a ban to rent apartments to anyone without proof of legal residency was implemented but quickly struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. Soon after, bans to prohibit food carts and impose parking restrictions in Latino neighborhoods were proposed. Tensions between the city and the Latino and immigrant population were growing.
Then, in 2010, the Escondido police began working side-by-side with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to orchestrate their most brazen attack on undocumented immigrants yet. Called "Operation Join Effort," ICE agents and the Escondido police department began conducting DUI checkpoints that operate as immigration checkpoints. The checkpoints net about 10 unlicensed drivers for every drunk driver and the vast majority of unlicensed drivers are undocumented immigrants. A disproportionate number of undocumented immigrants are deported and have their vehicles impounded and sold while Escondido illegally profits from revenue generated by the checkpoints. In the past three years Escondido and tow companies with city contracts, have pulled in $11 million in fees, citations and auctioned vehicles.
Escondido is believed to be the only city in the country to have a special agreement with ICE agents who have their offices within the Escondido police department and are on standby during sobriety checkpoints.
The State of California's Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) provides grants to fund DUI checkpoints in Escondido as well as other cities throughout California. And while the Escondido police department insists that checking a driver's license at DUI checkpoints is mandatory in order to qualify for state grants, OTS states that they "do not penalize a grantee for not checking [a driver's license]." According to Bill Flores, a retired Assistant Sheriff for San Diego County and Escondido resident, the checkpoints unfairly target immigrants and brown people: "It is a way for the police department to make it so hard for them to live here that they will move somewhere else."
One of the conditions of the OTS grant program--which forks over $350,000 per year to Escondido--is that profits cannot be generated from checkpoints. Also, by law, the state of California does not allow police agencies to make a profit from towing cars. Yet an extensive review of city and police documents reveals that Escondido has been profiting immensely from both state-funded DUI checkpoints and towing of cars.
In order to be able to tow cars for the city of Escondido, a tow company had to pay the city $25,000 in 2004; in 2007, it was up to $50,000; and by 2011, that figure reached a staggering $100,000. After the tow companies demanded a justification for the steep increase, the city reduced the fees. Each of the six tow companies now pay the city $75,000 for a grand total of $450,000 per year.
There's a reason that tow companies are willing to pay so much to be included. During the past eight years of state-funded DUI checkpoints, they made millions of dollars. On average, from 2004 - 2011, 5,000 vehicles were towed each year. Unlicensed drivers in Escondido were being caught by the thousands and each one represented an impound fee, a tow hitch fee, and a 30-day impound storage fee totaling about $2,000 per vehicle. In 2007 according to Escondido police documents, the department considered starting their own city-run tow yard so that they could keep most of the revenue. Escondido abandoned the venture but it was clear that the city was interested in increasing profits from state-funded checkpoints and the towing of cars - both illegal practices.
State law requires that Escondido police justify tow fees and bill the tow companies only for the direct costs of towing cars. In order to substantiate the $450,000 they receive from the tow companies, the Escondido police department has had to employ some very creative accounting. A 2011 police tow program report shows the Escondido police listing tow expenses for items such as bulletproof vests, weapons and wear and tear on police radios, cell phones and vehicles. These bogus line items pad expenses by at least 60 percent.
To justify raising tow contract fees, the Escondido police dept has also inflated the amount of labor involved in a tow. According to 2004 and 2007 police tow program reports, the Escondido police department claimed it would take a total of 33 minutes of labor to tow a vehicle, including paperwork. By 2011, the police department was claiming that it took 187.5 minutes. Marcos Ramirez, a retired sergeant who handled traffic safety for the San Diego County Sheriff's department, says this doesn't add up. "There is no need to bill for so much time to tow a vehicle," says Ramirez. "Either Escondido is looking to pad their books or they don't know how to tow a car. If it took my officers that long to tow a vehicle, they would be fired."
In addition to collecting $450,000 a year from tow companies as well as the $350,000 in grant money from the OTS, Escondido also collects an $180 impound fee from the owner of each car which amounts to an average of $500,000 a year. Yet, the state grant for DUI checkpoints is all-inclusive -- intended to cover officer labor time and equipment. This past year, Escondido reduced their tow fees from $180.00 to $100.00 for cars that were towed during OTS-funded checkpoints. After repeated requests for documents that justify the reduction in fees and why the fees were not reduced for previous years, the city of Escondido stated that no documents exist to justify the recently lowered impound fee -- which is still questionably legal.
All residents of Escondido want safer streets and fewer drunk drivers on the road, but with ICE agents on standby, and checkpoints being conducted even in the mornings, it's clear that the intent of these checkpoints are being perverted by the police department. While the Latino population is being unfairly targeted, the city government continues to rake in the profits.
KPBS Evening Edition in San Diego will air a report related to the information in this article and interview John Carlos Frey about his investigation on Monday, March 12 at 6:30 PST. Click here for more information.
Crossposted from KPBS.
Follow John Carlos Frey on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johncarlosfrey
I can tell you in our city we list the people who have been arrested for a DUI. Some are caught in a check point and others are because of the extra police force we have due to the grant. There is no target against illegals, the target is people who are drinking and driving; if you are found guilty of other items due to the stop, then there is the saying " being in the wrong place at the wrong time." it is still the law to have a DL and carry Ins in order to drive a car in our state. I was hit by an illegal in 1988 who did not have a DL or Ins, I lost 6 months of work and broke both of my pelvis, he ran a red light.
The police let him go. Since then due to my accident I have had to have one back surgery and two neck surgeries. If you think that it is ok for people to drive without a DL or Ins then you think what happened to me is just fine.
Find a new argument !
The checkpoints themselves cost money. If the total cost of the checkpoints more than the $350,000 from that the city receives OTS + $450,000 from the towing companies, it does not make a profit. There is nothing unusual about including overhead as a cost. Without a clear statement of the total costs, including the number of policemen who work on the checkpoints, it is hard to form any judgements. However, if there is a profit, it is much less than the gross amount that the city receives from the OTS and towing fees.
Even if true that:
"Escondido claimed in 2007 it cost them 200,000 to run the entire tow program yet received over a million dollars from impound fees and tow contract."
You have not told us how much it cost to man the checkpoints. If "5,000 vehicles were towed each year." I imagine that it requires at least the full-time services of 10 police officers, maybe far more. Salary, benefits (including Cullyfornia's famous pension system), vehicles, equipment and overhead. That could easily be $2 million.
In fact, a quick internet search reveals not only that Escondido has a budget crisis, but that in 2010 the city had a police budget of $34 million for 150 officers. Do the math.
Obviously, if illegal immigrants (the poorest residents) paid more in taxes than the received in services -- it would be mathematically impossible for the city to run a deficit: Another dumb excuse for illegal immigration fails a logic test.
But I fully agree -- the city should not do this -- the Federal Government should!
Book'em and ship them out! Confiscate their property and auction it, proceeds to further advance the LIVE of LEGAL Aliens and Citizens.
I have no MERCY for Illegals! They steal, they are committing unwarranted welfare benefits. crimes and they cost untold BILLIONS in benefits that could be going to US Citizens or upkeep on our crumbling infrastructure... .
California is FLOUNDERING in Illegals and you are going broke. Why is it the Illegal Lovers and the state government can't see the correlation. Cali, You're dying on the vine & it's your own darn fault.
"While the Latino population is being unfairly targeted"
So long as a checkpoint does not single out a particular ethnicity, how is the Latino population being unfairly targeted? If it so happens that most of the people without licenses are illegal aliens and most of those unlawfully present aliens are Latino, so what? Are we to not enforce law just because the majority of those in violation of it are of a particular ethnicty and some self-interested "advocates" don't want them to be accountable to it? As long as the law is being *applied* equally, no fair-minded person should have a problem with that even if the outcome is that most of those caught are from a particular group. That's justice. Looking the other way for the benefit of any particular group = corruption.
The real point of the article is that immigration laws should not be enforced. Failing that, it should be as expensive as possible to enforce the laws in order to discourage enforcing the laws.
police committing crimes? I have been through many check points and never had any problems, when you obey the law you seldom do.