The Santa Ana Police Department continues to focus at the City Council’s request enforcement efforts on publicly intoxicated or passed out individuals, reporting 942 arrests in the last three months of 2023, with 206 of those people booked into the city jail.
In its first quarterly report on the initiative back to the council, Santa Ana PD officials also reported that the efforts resulted in 954 hours of overtime between September and December, costing the city $92,832.
The City Council back in July asked the Police Department to focus on detaining people who are found passed out or intoxicated in public. Councilmember Phil Bacerra introduced the idea, saying the city needed to take action to address substance abuse issues in Santa Ana and enforce existing state laws that allow for detaining individuals who are publicly intoxicated. As people are released they are approached with resources available for finding shelter and additional support.
Since the council directed the police to focus on this issue, the initiative has cost the city more than $174,000 in officer overtime targeting public intoxication.
Between Aug. 15, when the focused enforcement began, and Sept. 15, staff reported that officers logged 374 hours of overtime, the estimated cost being $38,000. Between September and October, the department reported it spent $43,466 in overtime on the effort.
SAPD spokesperson Officer Natalie Garcia said that overtime is created so that other police services are not being compromised.
“We don’t want to lower our police services in any other areas, so we created overtime to address the public intoxication issue,” Garcia said. “It’s a benefit for community members that overtime is being used for this very prevalent issue. If we have officers specifically designated to this issue, it alleviates the work from our patrol officers working their day-to-day duties and addressing other citizens’ needs.”
Bacerra said he found it…
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