UPDATE, JUNE 19, 11:41 A.M.: The Orange County Sheriff's Department is deploying “saturation patrols” or deputies assigned specifically to stop and arrest alcohol- and drug-impaired drivers, from 7 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday in Stanton, Yorba Linda and Villa Park, officials announced.
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ORIGINAL POST, JUNE 19, 6:06 A.M.: Santa Ana and Garden Grove have DUI checkpoints up tonight and–surprise, surprise–police in both cities disclosed the locations of the operations. But only Garden Grove's sobriety stop is dedicated to the memory of a 16-year-old girl who was killed by a drunken driver 21 years ago.
Allison Saliture was driving a friend along Valley View Street on March 26, 1994, when her vehicle was struck by another with a 19-year-old woman who'd been served 15 beers at a bar behind the wheel. Allison died several days later from her injuries.
Haze Saliture, Allison's mother and a volunteer with Mothers Against Drunken Driving (MADD), has helped out at every Garden Grove DUI checkpoint for the past 11 years, according to police Lt. Bob Bogue. Tonight Mrs. Saliture is scheduled to volunteer at the checkpoint to help mark the 21st anniversary of her daughter's passing.
The Garden Grove Police Department's Traffic Unit will be looking for drivers who are unlicensed, under the influence or both from 9 tonight through 3 a.m. Saturday on Brookhurst Street north of Westminster Boulevard, Bogue says.
Santa Ana's similar operations runs during the same window of time in the area of 1000 East Fourth Street, according to police there.
Funding for both checkpoints comes from California Office of Traffic Safety grants, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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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.