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Officers aiming to curb DUI offenses locally |
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Sunday, 30 August 2009 |
Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series of stories dealing with drunk driving enforcement locally. A second installment will be published in Monday’s newspaper.
By BRIAN HAWKINS
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Starkville Police Department officers are hoping to send a message to local residents and Mississippi State students alike as they continue a special campaign through Labor Day: Don’t think about getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking alcoholic beverages.
The SPD and other area law enforcement agencies — including the Oktibbeha County Sheriff’s Department — are participating in the national “Drunk Driving: Over the Limit, Under Arrest” campaign that kicked off this past Friday and continues through Labor Day.
The campaign is aimed at cracking down on drunk driving and other alcohol offenses, as well as seat belt enforcement and traffic safety. It’s also aimed at deterring potential drunken drivers — particularly new Mississippi State students — from getting behind the wheel, said SPD officers.
Traditionally, with the start of a new academic year at MSU, police see a spike in drunk driving arrests.
“Every August, the number of DUI arrests picks up because we have freshmen and transfer students come in from out of city, county and state who come to Starkville and find out we’re not reactive when it comes to drunk driving, we’re proactive,” said Landon Stamps, one of two SPD officers designated for DUI enforcement.
“Many of them may come from a small town where ‘daddy knows the sheriff’ and they think they can do what they want. But they’re not going to drink and drive and endanger other people’s lives in Starkville. It doesn’t matter who you know.”
Stephen Hale, the SPD’s other designated DUI officer, agrees.
“You have kids who come to college who have never been out of their parents’ house before. They come to town and see people partying and drinking, and they make a bad decision to get behind the wheel of a car to get home after they’ve been out,” Hale said.
That’s why campaigns like the “Over the Limit, Under Arrest” initiative are important, said SPD Sgt. Shawn Word, who is coordinates special crackdown efforts funded through state grants. Sponsored at the state level by the Mississippi Office of Highway Safety, previous campaigns and the accompanying crackdowns have been successful in decreasing accidents.
OHS statistics for the most recent campaign held over a 12-day period in May saw 14,000 tickets for seat belt offenses and 1,800 child restraint violation tickets written statewide, as well as 1,400 DUI arrests. This resulted in a 65 percent decrease in vehicular crashes for May 2009 as compared with May 2008.
“We want people to know they’re not going to get breaks. We’ve had our own DUI officers arrest people who were their friends,” Word said. “We have a job to do, and there is a greater purpose in what we’re doing. The officer who locks up his friends may be saving their lives and keeping them from being in a car crash.”
While students comprise a significant portion of the DUI arrests that are made locally, an equal amount are local residents, Stamps and Hale said.
“Probably a little over half of those we arrest are college students, but you would be surprise at the percentage that are locals. About 45 percent of the DUI’s I write are above college age. We see offenders of all demographics, genders and ages. It runs the gamut,” Stamps said.
A college community like Starkville will traditionally see a higher amount of DUI arrests, Hale said.
“When I worked in Saltillo, we might get one or two DUI arrests in a week, if that much,” Hale said. “While there’s often seasonal spikes, it’s not uncommon for me to make 7 to 10 DUI arrests in one week, particularly when the students first come back to school.”
“Between midnight and 3 a.m., a significant number of the cars I stop have someone who’s been involved in drinking.”
The importance of the job
Hale and Stamps are quick to admit that they love working in drunk driving enforcement and that the work they and other SPD officers are doing is having a deterrent effect.
“I’ve been with this department for five years, and I’m enjoying my job more than ever before,” Hale said. “I think we’ve had a strong deterrent effect over the past three years since the department has had DUI officers. It used to be that once the bars let out at 1 a.m., the parking lots were quickly emptied and had people all over the streets.
“Now, you can drive by the bars at 3 or 4 a.m. and see several cars that have bee left until the morning because people didn’t want to drive drunk and risk arrest and got another ride home. I pull over more designated drivers than ever, and that’s good.”
The scenario Hale describes is more readily apparent as MSU’s fall semester progresses, Stamps said.
“You can tell the difference once the students have been around awhile. You notice less traffic out of the bars closer to the end of the semester because word gets around classes, the dorms and in fraternities and sororities that we take drunk driving seriously,” Stamps said. “They’re like, ‘These boys aren’t playing around.’”
Word stressed that officers will also be conducting random bar and restaurant checks for underage drinkers during the current “Over the Limit, Under Arrest” crackdown and throughout the year.
“We’re targeting minors in possession of alcohol because drunk driving often feeds off of this,” Word said. “If students see officers pulling people out of bars, it also gives the perception that more officers are out enforcing other alcohol violations, and we usually are.”
Though he and Stamps are the SPD’s designated DUI officers, that doesn’t mean they are the only ones enforcing drunk driving laws, Hale said.
“We appreciate other officers on patrol for the support they give us and the work they do in DUI enforcement,” Hale said. “It’s not about going after students or any one group, it’s about keeping impaired drivers off the road and keeping people from hurting themselves or others.”
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Last Updated ( Monday, 31 August 2009 )
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