DUI Attorney in El Segundo

Reviewed by Ron Chini, Esq. · CA State Bar No. 263308 · DUI defense attorney in Irvine, CA since 2009.
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How DUIs are policed in El Segundo

Unlike most small cities in the South Bay, El Segundo has never contracted out its policing. The El Segundo Police Department is a municipal agency in its own right, headquartered at 348 Main Street, El Segundo, CA 90245, with roughly 70 sworn officers covering the city's 5.5 square miles between Aviation Boulevard on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. A DUI stop on Main Street, Sepulveda Boulevard, or along the Imperial Highway corridor bordering LAX is typically made by an El Segundo officer, not a Sheriff's deputy or a contract agency.

Freeway-adjacent stops are a different story. The California Highway Patrol's West Los Angeles Area office, 6300 Bristol Parkway, Culver City, CA 90230, (424) 577-8700, lists El Segundo among the cities in its patrol territory — alongside Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan Beach, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Hawthorne, and Inglewood — and its territory folds in Interstate 405 and the airport perimeter roads that ring LAX immediately north of the city. A DUI arrest made on the 405 itself, rather than on a city street, is more likely to carry a CHP report instead of an ESPD one.

• El Segundo Police Department reports roughly 70 sworn officers for a city of about 17,000 residents — a staffing ratio local coverage has called unusually high for a city this size, reflecting the daytime population swell from the aerospace and corporate campuses that outnumber residents on weekdays.
• The city's own small station has holding capability for a short-term processing hold after a DUI arrest; longer custody or a felony-level case can move a person into the county system depending on the specifics of the arrest.

Where an El Segundo DUI case is likely heard

Several law-firm case summaries and courthouse guides describe El Segundo DUI cases as going to the Airport Courthouse, 11701 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045 — consistent with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office (rather than a city attorney) filing the case, since El Segundo is its own city with its own prosecutable charges but no DUI city-attorney unit of its own. That lines up with how the Airport Courthouse already handles DUI filings from other independent Westside cities once their own courthouses closed. But the court's own official jurisdiction listing for the Airport Courthouse — checked directly against the court's current site — names only "the city of Los Angeles" and does not mention El Segundo by name. Treat the Airport Courthouse as the strong working assumption, not a certainty: confirm the exact courthouse and department from your citation, or by calling the clerk, before your first court date.

As of this writing, the Airport Courthouse's own posted case-type list covers criminal matters only (CR), with a felony Criminal Clerk's Office and a separate misdemeanor Criminal Clerk's Office, plus directory listings for the Alternate Public Defender, the Los Angeles City Attorney, and the Santa Monica City Attorney. Those last two entries exist because the building also absorbs DUI filings from the City of LA and from Santa Monica — not because either office would prosecute an El Segundo case.

Booking and getting a car back after an El Segundo arrest

Because El Segundo runs its own department, a DUI arrest here usually starts and, for a short processing hold, stays at the city's own station on Main Street rather than beginning at a county facility the way an arrest in a Sheriff's contract city would. A second breath or blood test is typically administered there, and release on a written promise to appear or on bail can follow a few hours later depending on the circumstances. A more serious case — a felony-level DUI, an outstanding warrant, or a hold the department can't process locally — can still move a person into the county custody system; the particulars of your arrest determine which path applies, and we can help sort that out during a free consultation.

Your vehicle is handled separately from your person. A standard DUI tow falls under Vehicle Code §22651(h) and is typically released from the tow yard once you or someone you authorize pays the towing and storage fees and completes the paperwork. The much harsher 30-day mandatory impound under Vehicle Code §14602.6 is not a general DUI rule — it applies only when the driver was also unlicensed, suspended, revoked, or driving on a restricted license without the required ignition interlock. Ask us which rule applies to your specific stop.

Oil wells, dive bombers, and 'the Gundo'

El Segundo's name is literally "the second" in Spanish: Standard Oil of California bought 840 acres of coastal dunes in 1911 to build its second West Coast refinery, and the company town that grew up around it incorporated on January 18, 1917. That refinery — now Chevron's, after the 1984 rebrand — still covers more than a quarter of the city's land area and processes roughly 276,000 barrels of crude a day, making it one of the largest refineries on the West Coast and still the single biggest physical feature in a city of only 5.5 square miles.

The oil town became an aerospace town during World War II, when the Douglas Aircraft plant here turned out SBD Dauntless dive bombers; Northrop Grumman now runs that same site. Boeing's satellite-systems operation, Aerojet Rocketdyne's headquarters, and the federal Space Systems Command (on what was long known as Los Angeles Air Force Base) all sit inside city limits today, alongside Mattel's and the Los Angeles Times' corporate headquarters — a daytime workforce that regularly outnumbers the roughly 17,000 people who actually live here. More recently, SpaceX's 2002 arrival helped turn the old industrial Smoky Hollow district into a cluster of hardware and robotics startups that locals now casually call "the Gundo." Smaller landmarks round out the city's identity: the Old Town Music Hall still screens classic and silent films accompanied by a working Wurlitzer organ, and the Marvin Braude Bike Trail runs along the artificial beach that replaced the refinery's old oil wharves.

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Ron Chini, Esq.

DUI Defense Attorney · CA State Bar No. 263308

Ron defends DUI cases across Southern California from his Irvine office, in English and Farsi — and works directly with you, not a call center.

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