Adenhart death should spur DUI crackdown

GRAND jury transcripts in the drunken-driving trial of Andrew Gallo, 22, the man charged with three counts of murder in the death of Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and Diamond Bar resident Courtney Frances Stewart, reveal a debauched tale. As first reported by this newspaper, Gallo and his stepbrother, Andrew Rivera, bar-hopped across West Covina and Covina. The grand jury says the two were drinking so heavily - tequila shots, beers, sake - that they didn't know where they were or where they were headed when they jumped in Gallo's minivan around 10:30 p.m. the night of April 8 with Gallo behind the wheel.
The court transcripts tell a disturbing story of overdrinking to the point that Rivera told Gallo outside a strip mall in Covina to drive because he knew he would be "blanking out." The transcripts and news reports say the two had been drinking heavily at two saloons in Covina just a few doors apart in a redeveloped strip mall off San Bernardino Road across from the Home Depot. They were the last places the pair were seen drinking before the crash that killed the Angels rookie April 9.
Gallo, the former Northview High School student, somehow drove to Fullerton shortly after Adenhart pitched his first game of the year at Angel Stadium and was headed to a dance club with Stewart to celebrate. Gallo was apprehended a mile away from the Fullerton intersection in which his car collided with Stewart's, killing the driver, two passengers and severely injuring another passenger, former Cal State Fullerton baseball player Jon Wilhite, who is miraculously recovering from what doctors call internal decapitation. Gallo, according to ESPN.com, told police "I (screwed) up." Rivera, the transcripts say, sat in a fetal position outside the smashed minivan and repeated over and over: "We killed those people. We killed those people." Court transcripts said the two men were so inebriated that when they left Covina, they thought they were heading to San Gabriel. They couldn't account for more than 90 minutes after they left Covina until the crash in Fullerton.
California law says bartenders are not to serve anyone who is intoxicated. So clearly a key question in this tragedy that apparently began in the San Gabriel Valley is, should bartenders at the bars where this pair was drinking have stopped serving the pair? Would one less drink have stopped the two from blanking out?
Transcripts quote a bartender who said Gallo was drinking at both bars, including one in Covina where waitresses serve oversized beers called "Boombahs" and wear bikinis. The witnesses put them at the bars around 10:30 p.m. and Rivera told the court that's when they left and when he passed out in the minivan.
The Orange County District Attorney said Gallo's blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit when arrested. It was revealed later that Stewart, the driver of the Mitsubishi Eclipse, had also been drinking and had an alcohol level of 0.06, according to toxicology tests performed by the coroner. It is not clear what effect that will have on the case. Police say Gallo ran the red light at Orangethorpe and Lemon going 66 miles per hour and struck Stewart's vehicle.
Covina police make routine patrols at all the bars in town, but told our editorial board it is tough to do more than regular "bar checks" with current staffing levels. The city does participate in a special DUI enforcement program headed up by the Glendora Police Department. It had tried for a state Alcoholic Beverage Control grant, but didn't get it.
The big question is: Can't more be done to apprehend drivers leaving Covina bars or any other San Gabriel Valley bar so drunk that they don't know the difference in direction between Fullerton and San Gabriel? Can Covina PD step up patrols around these two bars separated by only a few doors in the same strip mall, which together may form a place where people go to get seriously drunk and later end up driving drunk? Do the two bars being so close together make for an unsafe pairing, a situation the City Council could consider examining under the Conditional Use Permit process? Shouldn't all cities re-examine a similar situation where bars are clustered together?
There also is a broader solution to an endemic problem. Recent reports say that many states, including New Mexico, require those convicted of a single driving while intoxicated offense to install an "interlocking" device on their cars that prevents operation if the driver has been drinking. The driver is required to breathe into a tube in order to engage the ignition. If the driver has been drinking at all, the car will not operate. The program has been credited with reducing the number of DUI deaths in New Mexico from 2004 to 2008 by 35 percent, from 219 to 143, according to a published report.
In Southern California, where driving is often part of nearly every activity, why hasn't this mandatory program been implemented, instead of only in the case of multiple DUI convictions and at a judge's discretion? Here's a tested program other states are using to cut down on drunken driving deaths and it's not being done regularly - beyond a planned test program somewhere down the line - here in the car capital of the world. It used to be California was ahead of the curve. On this issue, it is behind.
Andrew Gallo had been convicted of DUI in San Bernardino County in 2006. On April 8-9, 2009, he was driving his car on a suspended driver's license. If only an interlock installed on his car after his conviction in San Bernardino had prevented it from starting that April night in Covina ... we'd be writing a different story today.

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T.O. boy hurt in suspected DUI crash dies

An 11-year-old Thousand Oaks boy critically injured in a crash caused by a woman suspected of driving under the influence of prescription medication has died, the California Highway Patrol reported Wednesday.
Thomas Botello was riding in the back seat of a sport utility vehicle driven by his aunt, Page Germain, when the crash occurred about 1 p.m. July 4 at the intersection of Las Posas and Laguna roads near Camarillo.
Heading west on Laguna, Germain stopped at a stop sign at Las Posas Road and then continued into the intersection, where cross traffic does not have a stop sign. She failed to yield the right of way to a pickup truck driven by Edgar Espinoza, 23, of Camarillo, and Espinoza was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting the SUV, CHP officials said.
Espinoza’s truck struck the right side of Germain’s SUV.
Thomas, who was sitting in the SUV’s right rear seat with his seat belt fastened, was airlifted to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. He was later taken to Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles, where he died Monday.
“This is a tragedy for our family,” said Thomas’ uncle, Gary Germain, reading a statement to the media from Thomas’ family. “We appreciate the outpouring of support we’ve received from friends and strangers, those who rendered assistance at the accident site and all medical personnel involved in Thomas’ care.”
A 12-year-old Camarillo boy in Espinoza’s truck suffered minor injuries. Espinoza and his other passenger, an 18-year-old Camarillo man, were uninjured.
Page Germain, 45, of Huntington Beach was arrested following the collision on suspicion of driving under the influence of prescription medication, then released to the hospital for treatment. She had moderate injuries, including a cut to her face and contusions to her head, said Officer Mike Untalan, a spokesman for the Ventura CHP.
She was later released on her own recognizance.
The crash remained under investigation Wednesday, and the CHP had not yet submitted the case to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office. CHP officials expect to file a criminal complaint against Thomas’ aunt, but the exact charges she could face have not been determined, Untalan said.
“We ask that others not jump to conclusions based on preliminary and incorrect information,” Thomas’ relatives said in the statement, without elaborating. “Take the time to appreciate your family and friends every day as life in our modern world can change in the blink of an eye.”
A memorial service for Thomas is tentatively scheduled for July 18 at the Griffin Family Funeral Chapel, 101 E. Wilbur Road in Thousand Oaks.

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