DA Receives $1.37 Million in DUI Grants

The Sacramento County District Attorney's office received some new funding recently to fight drunk driving.

The funding, $1.37 million from the California Office of Traffic Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, was announced Tuesday in a press release.

“Drunk driving has been an ongoing problem in Sacramento, and drugged driving is growing throughout the state,” California Office of Traffic Safety Director Christopher J. Murphy was quoted as saying. “The programs that these grants fund will give the District Attorney more of the resources needed to help combat both.”

The funding, which runs through Sept. 30 of this year, comes in two parts:

$435,000 for a "Liquid Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer instrument," which will "test for sedative-hypnotic drugs such as Xanax, Valium, Ambien, and marijuana in drug impaired driving cases." The money also pays for portable breath-testing equipment and overtime costs for district attorney crime lab staff to help at DUI checkpoints.

$935,000 to grow the "DUI Vertical Prosecution & Community Awareness Program," a team that prosecutes driving under the influence cases that cause death or serious injury. The funding will allow drug-impaired driving cases to be included. The funding will also go toward outreach and the "Real DUI Court in School" program, where real DUI sentencings are held at local high schools. .