When law enforcement officials announce looming DUI checkpoints, they will routinely note the goal is not to catch drunken drivers but inform the public about the dangers of climbing behind the wheel impaired. But Eric Paul Ivanoff is accused of giving Cypress Police no choice, being drunk in a rear-end crash at a sobriety stop at Valley View Street and Lincoln Avenue that injured three women Friday evening.
The checkpoint had only been up and running about a half hour when the crash happened, Ivanoff allegedly ran away and became combative when he was taken into custody, police said. He was held in Orange County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail on several charges.
The crash injured three women, two of whom were taken to a trauma center with moderate injuries, according to police, who reported all three were in stable condition over the weekend. An officer working the checkpoint also received minor injuries, police added.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.