DWI News - DWI arrests jump 23% in Abilene
Officer's '07 death leads to 'attitude shift'
By Daralyn Schoenewald
Drunken driving arrests in Abilene last year were up nearly 23 percent over 2007, and police officials are crediting a department-wide focus on keeping the city streets sober.
The Abilene Police Department also has taken a big "STEP" to catch drunken drivers. In 2007 and 2008, the department received a Selective Traffic Enforcement Program, or STEP, grant for use in putting more officers on the streets to catch drunken drivers, Abilene police Sgt. Doug Wrenn said.
Abilene police investigated 585 incidents of driving while intoxicated in 2008. In 2007, 477 DWI incidents were investigated. On average in 2008, approximately 49 people a month were arrested on suspicion of drunken driving.
"It is no secret that our department has worked short-handed for a considerable length of time. However, our officers are dedicated to providing a safe environment for Abilene residents," Abilene police Sgt. Keith Shackleford said in a prepared statement. "These numbers are a direct reflection of that goal. It is not our intention to fill up the jailhouse. Simply, we want people to make it home safely."
Wrenn, who heads the department's traffic division, said DWI accidents have been deadly in recent years, citing a 2006 double fatality that killed two teenagers, a 2007 accident that killed a pregnant woman, and the June 2007 death of Abilene police officer Jeff McCoy, who was killed in the line of duty after being struck by a drunken driver. It was McCoy's death, when the department became a victim of an intoxicated driver, Wrenn said, that led to a departmental shift in attitude toward drunken drivers.
"Officers are doing more with less. It's the sheer diligence on the part of patrol officers that have accounted for the dramatic increase (in DWI arrests)," Wrenn said.
"It was a sudden, tragic event that made us realize how easy it is to prevent with a traffic stop, an arrest and maybe a little luck," he said. "Our attitude really shifted."
The focus on taking impaired drivers off the city streets sometimes takes the focus away from other areas, but officers are committed to a common goal of keeping the city safe, Wrenn added, crediting officers on evening and midnight patrol shifts for catching a large number of drunken drivers last year.
They constantly go on emergency calls in between traffic stops and still manage to get intoxicated drivers off the road -- an arrest that yields them three hours worth of paperwork, Wrenn said.
Police also have begun implementing "No Refusal Weekends," in which a search warrant for a blood specimen is applied for if a driver suspected of intoxication refuses to give a breath test. "No Refusal" weekends were conducted on Labor Day and New Year's Eve, and Wrenn said the STEP grant will next be used during spring break -- typically in mid-March -- to put more officers on the streets.
"'No Refusal' is the highlight of 2008," Wrenn said. "Twelve search warrants were applied for. It's an outstanding program for us to participate in."
View Source>>>