You May Not Want to "Friend" Huntington Beach on Facebook
City consider posting names of drunk driving suspects
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Huntington Beach wants to cut down on drunk driving by shaming the suspects on Facebook.
Facebook may be many things to many people, but one Southern California city wants to turn it into a 21st Century pillory.
Huntington Beach is considering posting the names of suspected drunk drivers on Facebook because -- as the Los Angeles Times reported -- the local newspaper has stopped publishing these listings.
The suggestion to use the city's Facebook page came up at a City Council meeting this week.
"I don't think public shaming for driving under the influence was such a bad idea," said councilmember Devin Dwyer
The idea is part of an aggressive anti-drunk driving initiative launched by Huntington Beach following a report last summer that the city has a significant drunken driving problem, one of the highest rates of such arrests for a city of its size.
The initiative called for more police to focus on DUI cases, the posting of the names of people arrested for drunk driving on the city's website and the sending of letters to bars when one of their patrons was arrested for DUI.
Now police are looking for a new way to broadcast drunk driving arrests and the city attorney is reviewing the proposal to use Facebook to make sure there are no legal barriers.
