A Sobering Record : Anaheim Police Officer Has Made 422 Drunk-Driving Arrests

ANAHEIM — Usually, when Police Officer Allen W. Eichorn pulls over a suspected drunk driver, the first thing he hears is an excuse.

“Everyone tells me they’ve had exactly two beers,” Eichorn said while on patrol one day last week. “Two beers, every time. No more, no less. Or they tell me that they’re just tired and have had a long day.”

But Eichorn is nobody’s fool.

Since joining the Anaheim Police Department’s driving-under-the-influence (DUI) enforcement team 20 months ago, he has arrested 422 suspected drunk drivers--a stupendous record that continues to grow.

Next month, he will be honored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) for having made more DUI arrests than any other police officer in Orange County during fiscal 1994.

“I’m impressed,” said Sgt. Ed Dougherty, Eichorn’s supervisor. “He takes his job very seriously and is one of the most aggressive officers I’ve ever seen in that position. He’s a hustler.”

Eichorn, who has been a police officer for 15 years, said he found his niche when he was assigned to the special enforcement team last year.

“When I go out and arrest someone, once I put them in jail, I get instant gratification,” he said. “Even if the court dismisses the charge, between now and then they are sober and aren’t on the streets killing someone.”

Remarkably, none of Eichorn’s DUI arrests have been dismissed in court, police officials said.

Dougherty said he thinks Eichorn is successful because he is committed to getting drunk drivers off the road.

“He has real strong feelings about it,” Dougherty said. “I think your interest really has to be there to do the kind of job he has.”

His achievements bear that out. Eichorn’s single-day record is arresting five drivers in one night. Once, he even arrested two men in the same car for drunk driving. The unique double-arrest occurred shortly after Eichorn spotted a car being driven erratically.

He watched as the driver pulled into a gas station to pick up his brother-in-law. At this point, the brother-in-law, who was also intoxicated, took over behind the wheel.

“I stopped them and ended up taking them both in for DUI,” Eichorn recalled.

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Eichorn said that while a majority of the drivers he arrests are men, there really isn’t a common profile of the drunk driver.

“They are all different types of income brackets, race, color and creed,” he said. “I’ve pulled over lawyers, businessmen. I once pulled over a nurse who had been drinking. She was completely humiliated and wanted to get it all over with as soon as possible.”

Eichorn begins his shift in the evening and works into the middle of the night. The veteran officer demonstrated his technique during an evening last week. He had been on duty less than an hour when he spotted a possible drunk driver--the first of three he would arrest that night.

“He’s driving with his lights off,” Eichorn said. He flashed his lights and pulled the car over on Katella Avenue.

The officer radioed for backup, then calmly asked the disheveled driver to perform a variety of sobriety tests, all of which he appeared to fail.

“He’s a classic example of what we are working to get off of the road,” Eichorn said later. “He might have driven all the way home with his headlights off.”

Driving at night without headlights is just one indicator of an impaired driver. Other clues are unusually wide turns, straddling the center lane or lane marker, weaving or swerving, sudden stops, turning abruptly or illegally, driving with a window down in cold weather, responding slowly to traffic signals, and driving in the wrong direction, according to MADD.

“People just don’t realize the consequences,” Eichorn said. “And I’m not talking about financial cost. If they make the wrong turn, someone gets killed.”

Eichorn said that a drunk-driving conviction stays on a driver’s record for seven years, causes insurance rates to go up and can draw up to $1,200 in fines.

The Orange County chapter of MADD will induct Eichorn and 12 other local officers into the “Century Club” at a dinner on Nov. 11. To qualify for this elite group, officers must have made at least 100 DUI arrests from July, 1993, through June, 1994.

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This is Eichorn’s second year in the Century Club. Last year, he qualified in just five months.

“We like to recognize the best of the best,” said Reidel Post, director of MADD’s Orange County chapter.

In 1993, 18 people were killed and 282 people were injured in Anaheim in alcohol-related accidents, according to statistics provided by MADD, which praised the city for its attention to the problem.

“Anaheim is a huge city, and there is a need for officers to be on DUI enforcement,” Post said. “It’s obvious that the Anaheim Police Department is taking a proactive stance in getting drunk drivers off the road.”