The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

OHP Roadblocks Target Downtown Bars, Restaurants
http://www.ktul.com/story/18611387/dui-checkpoint-scheduled-for-downtown

A sign of success for Downtown.

I always carry a box of donuts with me in case I need to bribe a cop.

They are targeting the I75 exit into downtown coming from the North

The message: Quit getting drunk at the cheap bars outside of the city or in your mom's basement. Get drunk at the pricy bars who pay us sales tax.

US 75?

Maybe not; from the Whirled:

The checkpoint at 8th Street and Frankfort Avenue was the OHP's kick-off of saturation patrols across the area during the Memorial Day weekend, said OHP Lt. George Brown.

Of the arrests, seven were for DUI, one for drug possession and one other felony arrest. Ten citations were issued for transporting an open container, 10 were issued for no insurance and 13 for driving without a license or while under suspension.
Troopers also issued 47 warnings for various offenses, according to the OHP. Twelve vehicles were towed due to arrests.

I believe "open container" can be a cup of coffee or any beverage without a lid on it.

In Oklahoma?  You betcha!

Last nights police roadblock near a Tulsa gay bar was a fabulous success:


TULSA, Oklahoma - Tulsa Police made 16 arrests during a DUI checkpoint overnight. Officers set up around 5th and Lewis in a special enforcement event.

In four and a half hours, police stopped 208 vehicles, made 16 arrests and issued 107 citations.

Twelve people were arrested for DUI, four for marijuana possession and one on an outstanding warrant.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Sand Springs Police and the ABLE Commission helped TPD with the DUI checkpoint, funded by an Oklahoma Highway Safety Office DUI enforcement grant.

I don't know what you mean targeting minorities...   That sounds racist.   

Outstanding success! Nearly 6% of the vehicles they stopped were guilty of the crime they were stopped for. A great day for the 4th Amendment.

or

Big government intrudes on the lives of citizens and illegally stops every citizens trying to legally go to downtown Tulsa and spend money. They were wrong almost 95% of the time and did nothing but mess with law abiding citizens. With no reasonable suspicion they pulled everyone over for the crimes of less than 6% of the population. Assume guilty, stop everyone, declare success. the 4th Amendment is crying.
- - -

Drunk driving is bad. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is more important.

Or maybe it was just to take the air out of the Center of the Universe Music Festival, the same way they do Oktoberfest, Mayfest, and pretty much any effort Tulsa makes to keep the sidewalks from rolling up at night.  And we wonder why businesses wont locate here.

Somewhere Smoot is smiling.

HA! Insert bad Haircut picture here.

Still focusing on downtown:

http://www.fox23.com/news/news/local/sobriety-checkpoint-takes-drunk-drivers-tulsa-stre/nnK9N

...but Im guessing all these citations can be thrown out since they didnt publish the location in advance as the courts have ordered.

...and again.  All but a dozen citations were for something other than drunk driving.
http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/multiple-area-agencies-continue-campaign-stop-into/nnPnF/

Looking at this and past numbers, they appear to be making just enough of a DUI quota to still be able to call these "sobriety checkpoints" but on closer examination it resembles the sort of "revenue-based policing" that got the DOJ so riled at Ferguson, Mo.
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ferguson-new-judge-is-finally-doing-something-about-abusive-court_55db88a3e4b08cd3359cfa86

You would think the rash of wrong-way crash deaths in a certain area near Catoosa would be a red flag, but...

Stop and search every vehicle looking for drunk drivers.

Arrest 5% of those for drunk driving. After review, plea deals, and thrown out charges - convict ~2.5% of actual drunk driving.

Or to put it another way, 95+% of warrant-less government searches resulted in a failure to find what they purportedly were looking for - but we are all safer, right comrades?

TPD publishes the notice on the Facebook page and probably on their Web page as well.

They publish a general area.
Last Saturday the published location was "near 11th and Harvard" and I believe the actual location was 7th and Harvard.

The percentage getting arrested for drinking and driving doesn't justify calling them sobriety checkpoints any longer but I doubt the courts will allow them to call it a "Safe and Sound" checkpoint to ensure everyone is driving safely ;o)

With three fatal crashes since May, OHP pursuit policy remains confidential

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/with-three-fatal-crashes-since-may-ohp-pursuit-policy-remains/article_4a38ba2b-7740-581a-aec6-f62364bc42a1.html

Using your car as a deadly weapon by ramming is OK as long as you call it something else.

ILLEGAL:


The Tulsa, Sapulpa and Broken Arrow police departments as well as the Oklahoma Highway Patrol will conduct a DUI checkpoint ... 10 p.m. Friday and continue until 3 a.m. Saturday in "the Broken Arrow area," OHP trooper Russell Callicoat said in a news release.

The last checkpoint, which occurred Sept. 3 near the 400 block of South Elgin Avenue, yielded 12 arrests and 90 citations, according to police.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/police-to-conduct-dui-checkpoint-in-broken-arrow-area-on/article_317fa4b1-7fc6-5328-a532-645e7cdcef13.html

I really dont like drunk drivers, but the legitimacy of ENDUI-like tactics is very questionable.

Police Charge Man With DUI Despite Testing Positive Only For Caffeine
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2016/12/28/police-charge-man-with-dui-despite-testing-positive-only-for-caffeine/


That SCOTUS requirement to publicize the location?  The ABLE website has since taken down the claim that it was a good deterrent, but I found this in a related search:

It seems counterproductive: every year police step up enforcement of suspected drunken driving around holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
They initiate roving road patrols. They plan DUI checkpoints at locations throughout the state.
But then they announce exactly what they’re doing — down to where and when the patrols and checkpoints will take place — seemingly giving advance notice to anyone thinking of driving drunk.

Why?
“Because the United State Supreme Court made a ruling and said we were obligated to do so,” Lt. J. Paul Vance, a state police spokesman, said Tuesday. “We’re obligated to follow the law like anybody else does.”
“We never used to announce them,” he said. “It was ‘Surprise!’”
That changed after a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case out of Michigan.
In that case the court ruled 6-3 that such checkpoints were constitutional. But in doing so, they implicitly acknowledged that certain guidelines — like publicizing the checkpoints ahead of time — were necessary.
If a person is driving, a police officer needs a reason to pull them over, or the stop would be illegal. Police advertise checkpoints as a way of giving fair notice to the general public.

“It’s required because otherwise it would be considered a detention without reasonable suspicion, which is a violation of the Fourth Amendment,” said John Williams, a New Haven defense lawyer.
As amendments go, the fourth — which protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, and requires police to (in most cases) convince a judge to sign a warrant to search citizens — is a pretty important one.

In the 1990 case, the Michigan appeals court had ruled that DUI checkpoints violated the Fourth Amendment before the U.S. Supreme Court overruled, using a balancing act to determine that the dangers posed by drunk driving outweighed the Fourth Amendment intrusion.

NHTSA.GOV Guidelines issued by the NHTSA also instruct police departments to publicize checkpoints aggressively.
Williams said that in cases regarding the constitutionality of DUI checkpoints, courts hold that announcing them ahead of time helps police satisfy constitutionality requirements.

“If they didn’t announce it they would definitely be in trouble and they wouldn’t be able to use any of the results,” Williams said.

Vance said that despite the requirements to announce the checkpoints and patrols ahead of time, state police still arrest drunk drivers.
“It doesn’t impact our ability to enforce,” Vance said, pointing out that state police charged 65 people with drunken driving over the Thanksgiving weekend last year. “That’s pretty significant for one holiday.”
http://valley.newhavenindependent.org/archives/entry/Why_Do_Police_Announce_DUI_Checkpoints



So basically the ten or so DUI arrests might just be un-prosecutable window dressing for the hundreds of "other" citations?