I have gotten a hold of an email from the Santa Ana Police Department indicating that they are planning a major crackdown on Santa Ana’s Easter Cruisers. The note appears below in its entirety.
The crackdown includes numerous street and lane closures and over 100 police officers!
I don’t get it. Our city is flat broke. How is the SAPD paying for this and why are they doing this?
And why is the O.C. Register railing against the Easter cruising? Here is what they reported, “Several law enforcement agencies, including the Santa Ana Police Department and the California Highway Patrol, are hoping to stop what has become an unwanted tradition, as visiting family members and revelers hit the streets.”
Needless to say, the Neighborhood Association busy-bodies and the Usual Suspects are up in arms over the Easter cruising.
Here is the actual email from the SAPD explaining what they intend to do to stop the Easter Cruisers:
Click here to read the rest of this post.
Anyone who has worked or been in or around the area of the cruising can tell you what a mess things become. Unlike the video seems to indicate, traffic becomes completely jammed during early hours. Residential side streets also become jammed as crusers try to bypass the large street closures.
Large numbers of kids and cars begin congregating in parking lots such as Edinger and Bristol blocking customers from access. While most of it is harmless kids yelling at each other from car to car, chinese fire drills and such, there are also the gangs that cruise looking for trouble as well.
Probably the worst of it is later in the night when traffic tends to thin out. That’s when the “rice rocket” drivers start challenging each other to drag races from stop light to stop light. Of course their is the alcohol and drug use as well, but in Santa Ana that is everywhere.
What is confusing is the large public relations push. This activity has been going on for over 20 years and not just Easter. This goes on every weekend all summer long. Police volunteer for the overtime and make serious money. In return dozens of cars are impounded and thousands of dollars in tickets are issued. Not to mention the arrests that are most likely deserved but often fill the jails and when juvenile hall runs out of room juveniles are released to mommy and daddy.
Police can’t ignore this mess and they haven’t for years. Why the extra PR this year is the question I would ask. I suggest Art go out and cruise Saturday and Sunday night and watch for himself before he prejudges and then report his findings.
I lived near Bristol and MacArthur behind the In-and-Out and I can tell you that at times the cruising got a little crazy.
However the answer as to why the big push is, the “usual suspects” don’t cruise.
If you were cruising around, or just driving around, and got a red light camera ticket in Santa Ana, fight it. Take it all the way to a trial – the judge is dismissing all pre-December Santa Ana camera tickets. But you have to put up the bail and take it all the way to trial – asking at arraignment won’t do the trick. This is happening because of recent appeal decisions.
If you have a red light camera ticket from any town, check to make sure it is real. Many of them are Snitch Tickets, fake/phishing red light camera tickets sent out by the police in an effort to fool the registered owner into ID’ing the actual driver of the car. (He doesn’t have to!) Local cities using this “social engineering” tactic are Bakersfield, Corona, Garden Grove, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Laguna Woods, Los Alamitos, Loma Linda, Riverside, Santa Ana, Santa Clarita, South Gate, and Victorville.) Snitch tickets have not been filed with the court, so they don’t say “Notice to Appear,” don’t have the court’s address and phone # on them, and usually say, on the back (in small letters), “Do not contact the court about this notice.” Since they have not been filed with the court, they have zero legal weight. You can ignore a Snitch Ticket. If in doubt, Google the term.
Wow i’ve never even heard of this phenomenon before. I think ill cruise down myself to check it out. I say more power to these guys!
Irvine Reporter,
I might do so as well, with video camera in tow…
CAN I COME CAN I COME???
(for ideological balance, you understand.)
Vern,
Come over to my place Sunday afternoon and I’ll feed you an Easter feast before we head over to see the cruisers…
“Come over to my place Sunday afternoon and I’ll feed you an Easter feast before we head over to see the cruisers…”
Hey Art, Is that offer open to all O.J. readers? What kind of pie are we eating? I’ll bring the Jello Salad.
Lowrider,
LOL! My sister in law is bringing the pie. Not sure what type. Hopefully she is bringing jello salad too!
My house will be crawling with kids. We have four. My sister as four. And my brother in law has four. So only the brave should come over! 🙂
Art,
Please video the cruising and post it here. Is this a civic emergency or kids looking for something to do in a city where there is nothing for them to do.
“kids looking for something to do in a city where there is nothing for them to do.”
I bet it’s just kids doing what kids have done for decades. When it was white kids in the 1950’s doing exactly the same thing the police did not crackdown on them. I suggest that the S.A. Police and council rent the move “American Graffiti” and they will see that all kids, white and brown alike just want to see and be seen. This car culture is nothing new and the police and council should worry about real crime. Enjoy your Spring Break kids and cruise if you want to. I hope the kids all have video cameras/video phones too and tape any mis-treatment by the police.
From: McGeachy, Douglas
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 4:08 PM
To: Nguyen, Lan; Macedonio, Margarita; Kutner, Scott
Cc: Bertagna, Anthony; Rojas, Carlos
Subject: Easter Cruiser Event
Hi Lan, Margarita, and Scott,
I know I spoke to Lan about this but I wanted to give you all the most up-to-date information on the plans for this weekend’s Easter cruising. City Yard personnel will begin setting up road closures and restrictions on Sunday at 3:15 pm. We will begin our enforcement efforts around 6:00 pm and I expect the event to last between 2:00 and 3:00 am. This year we restrict traffic onto Bristol from the intersecting side streets south of 1st Street and north of Warner. Some roads will be closed and others will just have turn restrictions. Traffic on Bristol will be restricted to two lanes in each direction from McFadden to Warner, with the exception of N/B Bristol from Warner to St. Andrew where only one lane will be available. Finally, W/B Edinger will be closed from Main to Bristol and all streets intersection with the north side of Edinger will be closed. In terms of staffing, I have about 125 officers scheduled to work that night and hope to be able to address any issues but please remind the residents that, while 125 officers is a lot, it is not enough to control the thousands we will encounter.
I have already released information to Wilshire Square residents and I encourage you to release as much of this information as you’d like. I would also ask that you tell them to avoid Bristol, Edinger, and Main if possible. I will also be writing a press release in the next day or so and will ask our PIO to release it to the local media. Let me know if you have any further questions. I also would like to invite, and encourage, each of you to come out that night for a little while if you’d like. I’d be happy to show you around so you can see exactly what we are facing on Easter and it is also a good indication of what Cinco de Mayo looks like. This might also give you a better understanding of the gravity of the problem so you can better address the community’s concerns at your meetings.
Take care,
Doug
DOUGLAS McGEACHY, Commander
Traffic Division
Santa Ana Police Department
(714) 245-8210 Office
(714) 245-8190 FAX
dmcgeachy@santa-ana.org
Frrom the above communication:
“I’d be happy to show you around so you can see exactly what we are facing on Easter and it is also a good indication of what Cinco de Mayo looks like. This might also give you a better understanding of the gravity of the problem so you can better address the community’s concerns at your meetings.”
This is directed to, I guess a group of Wilshire Square residents that are concerned with Hispanics congregating.
The only similarity between the crusing and Cinco de Mayo is just that, a predominantly Hispanic crowd. This seems racist to me.
This serves only to incite and cuase division possibly for political and economic manipulation.