Don’t do it.

NBC Los Angeles reported the Los Angeles Police Department Avoid the 100 DUI Task Force said they will be deploying special roving DUI patrols on Sunday, Feb. 5  in communities throughout the area looking to stop and arrest drivers who are impaired by alcohol or drugs. These DUI patrols are, in addition to regularly scheduled patrol officers, all looking for the tale-tell signs of an intoxicated driver behind the wheel.

In 2010, over 10,000 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes that involved at least one driver or motorcycle rider with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher, law enforcement officials said.  In California, this led to 791 deaths because someone failed to designate a sober driver.

If you are hosting a Super Bowl XLVI Party, you are asked to:

• Make sure all of your guests designate their sober drivers before kick-off
• Make sure sober drivers’ cars are easy to access when it is time to start driving people home
• Serve plenty of food
• Offer a variety of non-alcoholic choices like non-alcohol beers, soft drinks, juice, and water
• Add the numbers of local cab companies into your phone so they are just one touch away
• Take appropriate steps to prevent anyone from driving while impaired
• Be prepared for guests to spend the night if an alternative way home is not available

If you are attending a Super Bowl party or watching at a sports bar or restaurant:

• Designate your sober driver before the party begins and leave your car keys at home if you plan to drink
• Offer to be the designated driver the next time you go out
• Cover the cost for parking or even pay for a tank of gas
• Avoid drinking too much alcohol too fast. Pace yourself, eat enough food, take breaks and alternate with non-alcoholic drinks.
• Take appropriate steps to prevent anyone from driving while impaired.

The LA Times reported the four-year veteran of the department was survived by his wife, father and sister.

It is believed the officer knew he was being investigated for allegedly having a relationship with a 17-year old girl.   The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department further stated they believed it was in the “best interest of the public” for the officer to be arrested before the end of his shift.

Department representatives said that information pertaining to the investigation began to “unfold rapidly” and that Covarrubias would have been taken to the Santa Maria jail and booked on “multiple felony counts”.

The shooting is currently under investigation by the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department.

CBS San Francisco reported that 46 of the arrests were for felonies and the remainders were for misdemeanors.  Suhr said that of the arrestees had a warrant for attempted murder and that another suspect had been wanted for aggravated assault.  Another was for robbery, he said.

Similar sweeps are scheduled to take place in the upcoming months.

The San Francisco Police Department consists of 10 substations in two divisions.  The Metro Division includes the Central Station, Mission Station, Northern Station, Southern Station and the Tenderloin Station, which serves downtown San Francisco.   The Goldengate Division includes the Bayview Station, Ingleside Station, Park Station, Richmond Station and Taraval Station.

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department has a staff of approximately 950 and is comprised of 850 sworn officers as well as 100 civilian staff.  Department Divisions include the Custody Division, the Special Response and Tactical Unit Team, Investigative Services and City Hall Security.

The current jail is only rated to house 880 inmates, but that number has been stretched between 1,300 and 1,500 inmates total, at times. This has caused some concern that the new jail will reach capacity quickly. Mayor Dwight C. Jones has promised, however, that the new facility is not going to be “a bigger jail to warehouse more prisoners.” He hopes to move the city forward in different alternatives to incarceration, such as ankle monitors.

Council Vice President Ellen F. Robertson is supportive of these types of actions and asked that the public hold the city leaders accountable for these types of changes.

Robertson said, “I’m glad that today, by choice, we are saying no more than 1,032 in the city of Richmond. By choice today we are making a decision to end the mass incarceration.” She has also been critical of the governor’s public-safety agenda, which calls for stricter punishments for repeat drug offenders instead of using funds to help drug users and prevent the drugs from entering the state and cities in the first place.

With the harsh conditions of the old jail, Sheriff C.T. Woody Jr. called the construction of the new jail a “historic moment.”

The total cost of the proposed project in Tuolumne County Jail is estimated at $48 million. The other counties that applied for the small county category of funding are Kings, Shasta, Sutter, Madera, Imperial, San Benito and Siskiyou.

There is only $102 million available from the state for county corrections projects and the eight counties requested a total of $188 million. The criteria for receiving money is based on how many inmates the counties sent to State prisons in 2010. If Tuolumne is to receive any money, other counties will have to drop their requests.

CAO Craig Pedro is not optimistic about the county’s chances of being granted money this cycle. The state board is going to review each application in March before making its final decision on where to settle the money. Pedro said, “If we don’t receive grant funding this cycle, I can’t imagine proceeding at this time. That will be a decision for another day.”

The process, said department officials, includes a written test, background screen, polygraph test, interviews, psychological testing and a physical test.  The latter portion includes scaling walls, carrying a 155 pound dummy as well as a timed-stair climbing test.

SDPD Assistant Chief Shelley Zimmerman said that the SDPD is currently “147 officers below budgeted staff”.

San Diego 10 News has reported that the department is looking for 25 recruits in February.  This will help begin to rebuild the local police force which has lost approximately 160 officers in the past couple years due to transfer, retirement, injury and death.  Of those who apply, just 5 percent of the approximate 3,000 applicants will ultimately receive offers for employment.

Of the applicants that receive job offers, Zimmerman said, an additional 10 percent of those are lost due to an inability to pass subsequent field training.

Zimmerman said that high-standards of the department and the competitive nature of the program may be a contributing factor to new-recruit attrition.

The primary mission of the Conservation Camp program is to provide agencies with an able-bodied, trained work force for fire suppression and other emergencies such as floods and earthquakes.

According to statistics provided by the CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, in an average year, Conservation Camp Program inmates provide approximately three million person hours in firefighting and other emergencies and save California taxpayers more than $80 million annually, on average.

The challenge lies in that many county jails, such as Los Angeles jails and San Diego jails, are releasing these low-level offenders early due to overcrowding. Some lawmakers are now questioning if there will be enough eligible inmates to volunteer for these types of positions.

The state has been utilizing these types of inmates to help fight wildfires since World War II.  In a Dec. 24 article by the LA Times, it was pointed out that prisoners who “exhibit ideal behavior in custody” could be “as much as half the manpower assigned to a large fire”. After 2013, inmate fire crews could be reduced by as much as 40%.

Some Sheriff’s have suggested that these types of inmates could be released and monitored with GPS ankle bracelets, but some question whether they’d come back to volunteer to serve on fire crews if they’re not still in custody.

Lawmakers, law enforcement and fire officials have said they will continue to work toward a solution. For now, however, the dollars-and-cents of dwindling budgets and lack of bed-space due to overcrowding still need to be worked out.

The FBI has already been looking into allegations of misconduct by sheriff’s deputies within the Los Angeles County jail. There have been multiple reports of abuse and violence. There was even one instance of a rookie deputy resigning after his supervisor allegedly told him to beat an inmate who was mentally ill. Nearly 30 deputies have been disciplined for covering up abuse or beating inmates in the last two years.

The new commission has limited power. It cannot force Sheriff Baca to make changes or subpoena documents. Since Sheriff Baca is an elected official, the only way to get him out of office is through a vote by residents. It can, however, raise public awareness about the issues and put pressure on the Board of Supervisors and the sheriff to make changes.

Members of the new commission include a pastor, four retired judges, a jail safety expert and a police chief.

The members will look into whether the Sheriff’s Department is properly monitoring the deputies. A department database is in place that is supposed to alert supervisors early on when a deputy is repeatedly accused of using excessive force with inmates.

It will also be decided whether rookie deputies are getting the proper training needed and supervision that will keep them from using force as their initial response during an incident. A rookie’s first assignment in the Department is to serve as a guard in the county jails.

Though the new commission cannot force a change in the jail system, its investigations can add more pressure on the Sheriff to take better actions to improve the system.

According to a study by the FBI, violent crimes such as rape, murder, assault and robbery saw a large decrease in the cities of Garden Grove, Orange and Santa Ana. This fall in violent crimes reported to the police is in line with the nationwide decrease of 6.4 percent for the first half of 2011.

One publication listed Lake Forest, Irvine and Mission Viejo among the safest cities. Forbes included the city of Santa Ana on its list of the safest communities in the country.

While violent crimes have decreased greatly, property crimes only saw a meager drop this year.

The City of Anaheim was the only city that had an increase in both property crime ad violent crimes during the first six months of the year. Violent crime increased 15 percent, according to FBI statistics.

The FBI study has shown a steady drop in crime across the nation for the past several years. Violent crimes are down 13 percent across the country since 2001 and property crimes have dropped nine percent since 2006.

Irvine, which calls itself “America’s Safest City”, has the lowest per capita violent crime rate in the nation. This is due, according to police officials, to the community involvement and policing strategy that is in place. However, property crime in Irvine jumped up 25 percent during the first half of 2011.

The CQ Press ranked Irvine #6 on its list of the safest cities. Mission Viejo was #3 and Lake Forest #12. Santa Ana was ranked #4 on the Forbes list of the safest cities.

Her son, Keith Doolin, was arrested and charged with the 1995 killing of two prostitutes and the attempted murder of four more.  He was 22 years-old at the time of his conviction and was eventually transferred from the Fresno County Jail to the San Quentin State Prison.

Keith has spent the past 17 years of his life awaiting state execution for a crime he says he did not commit.

DNA and ballistics testing have been requested since 1998.  Donna said that “after 17 years of wrangling with the courts, that DNA testing was finally done” and the findings clearly showed that it was not Keith’s.   The results of the ballistics testing also supported Keith’s claims of innocence.

She said that although they do not yet know when he will be released from Death Row, that the family is hopeful it will be soon.

Donna has long claimed that the “flat fee” charged by Keith’s original defense attorney Rofolfo Petilla was unfair in that Petilla spent less than $9,000 in ancillary costs and was allowed to pocket the rest.  The Metropolitan News Enterprise previously reported that she said there was a “built in incentive for [him] to spend as little as possible on the defense so he could spend more money”.