Crime & Safety

1 Suspected DUI at Checkpoint Melody

Sober driving campaign by Novato police and Avoid the Marin 13 was held in honor of a 9-year-old girl who was struck and killed in a Novato intersection in 2009.

A sobriety and driver’s license checkpoint set up Friday night and early Saturday morning in Novato yielded one arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to Novato police.

The operation was unofficially called Checkpoint Melody in honor of a 9-year-old Novato girl who was killed by a drunken motorcycle rider in 2009.

Officers and other personnel from the Avoid the Marin 13 law enforcement campaign screened 1,718 vehicles on San Marin Drive at West Campus Drive, right in front of the Fireman's Fund Insurance headquarters, betwee 6 p.m. Friday and 1:15 a.m., according to Novato police Sgt. Oliver Collins. Sixteen people were cited for driving without a license and five  were found with suspended licenses, he said.

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Thirty-six people were given field sobriety tests and one person failed. Six  vehicles were towed and four citations were given out for moving violations.

One year ago at Checkpoint Melody, officers made two suspected DUI arrests at the same location, about one mile east of where Melody Osheroff and her father, Aaron, were struck by motorcyclist Edward Schaefer.

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The checkpoint was funded by a grant from the UC Berkeley Safe TREC program. Novato police said the goal of the checkpoints is to increase public awareness about the danger of impaired driving and reduce the number of victims killed and injured in alcohol-involved crashes.

If anyone suspects a drunken driver on the road, that person is urged to call 911 to help law enforcement identify impaired drivers before they injury themselves or others.

For one Novato Patch blogger's viewpoint on why these checkpoints are important, click here. For a message about drunken driving from Aaron Osheroff, the father of the child killed by the impaired motorcyclist, click .


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