DUI Attorney in Lynwood

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 Lynwood

Lynwood does not run its own police department. The city disbanded its municipal force and has contracted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for patrol since May 1, 1977. Today that service is delivered out of the LASD Century Station, 11703 South Alameda Street in Lynwood, which covers Lynwood along with the unincorporated communities of Florence-Firestone, Walnut Park, Willowbrook, and Athens Park — a separate patrol area from Carson, Compton, and Paramount, each of which has its own Sheriff's station (Carson Station, Compton Station, and Lakewood Station, respectively), even though all four cities share the same Compton Courthouse for DUI cases. A DUI stop on a Lynwood surface street is almost always a Century Station deputy, not a city officer.

The California Highway Patrol handles the freeways near Lynwood. The CHP's South Los Angeles Area office lists Compton and Willowbrook — both of which border Lynwood — among the communities it serves, and CHP units are the ones who typically respond to DUI stops on the Interstate 105 and Interstate 710 corridors that run close to the city, even though patrol inside Lynwood's own streets stays with the Sheriff's Department.

• LASD Century Station, 11703 S. Alameda St., Lynwood — the contract patrol agency for all of Lynwood since 1977.
• California Highway Patrol — handles DUI enforcement on the freeways near Lynwood, including I-105 and I-710.
• California's Office of Traffic Safety 2023 rankings placed Lynwood (Group C, average population 66,360) at 2 out of 103 comparably sized cities for DUI arrests (15 arrests) and 96 out of 103 for alcohol-involved-collision victims, with 271 total victims killed or injured across all collision types that year.

Where a Lynwood DUI case is heard

A DUI arrest in Lynwood — whether made by a Century Station deputy or CHP on a nearby freeway — is filed at the Compton Courthouse. The Los Angeles County court system's own location record for the Compton Courthouse describes its jurisdiction as covering cases arising in Carson, Compton, Lynwood, Paramount, and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County, which keeps a Lynwood misdemeanor DUI in that building from arraignment through trial. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office — not any Lynwood city office, since the city has none handling criminal prosecution — decides what to charge and prosecutes the case.

Booking and getting a car back after a Lynwood arrest

Booking after a Lynwood DUI arrest usually starts at Century Station itself, 11703 S. Alameda Street. From there, the path splits by sex: women booked out of the Lynwood area are typically held at the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), Los Angeles County's only all-women jail, which sits immediately next door at 11705 S. Alameda Street — inside Lynwood city limits. Men are generally transported roughly 15 miles north to the county's downtown booking complex, the Inmate Reception Center at 450 Bauchet Street, with housing typically at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. Bail for either facility can be posted 24/7 at the downtown Inmate Reception Center. A towed vehicle is usually a routine Vehicle Code §22651(h) tow tied to the arrest, released once someone shows up with valid registration, a license, and insurance; a longer, 30-day Vehicle Code §14602.6 impound only applies if the driver was unlicensed or driving on a suspended or revoked license.

Plaza México, St. Francis Medical Center, and life in Lynwood

Lynwood, incorporated in 1921, is one of the most densely populated small cities in Los Angeles County's Gateway Cities region, and one of its most heavily Latino: the 2010 Census found roughly 87% of residents identified as Hispanic or Latino, and the city's population stood at 67,265 at the 2020 Census. Its best-known landmark is Plaza México, a 32.82-acre, 400,000-plus-square-foot shopping and cultural destination built on the former Lynwood Marketplace site and redeveloped in the early 2000s into a Mexican-plaza-style complex with replicas of landmark buildings and monuments from several Mexican states, plus a mercado housing more than 200 vendors. It draws shoppers and diners from well beyond Lynwood's own 5.3 square miles, including into evening hours that typically draw added DUI patrol attention.

The city is also home to St. Francis Medical Center, 3630 E. Imperial Highway, whose emergency department has held a Level II trauma center designation since January 1996 — meaning it is one of the hospitals in the area equipped to treat the most serious injuries from a collision, including an alcohol-involved crash with injuries. A DUI that causes injury near Lynwood is a materially more serious charge than a standard DUI, and can be charged as a felony.

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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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