Southern Arizona DUI Task Force winding up holiday campaignBy Dale Quinn | Arizona Daily Star | Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.01.2007 Southern Arizona DUI Task Force will wrap up its holiday enforcement today with one last deployment to keep drunken drivers off the road. Between Nov. 24 and Dec. 30, officers in the task force arrested 304 suspected drunken drivers, according to deployment statistics. Officers were also deployed Sunday night into this morning. On Friday and Saturday, officers made 55 DUI arrests in the Tucson area. Of the arrests, four of those were under 21 and 11 were arrested for extreme DUI, with suspects having a blood-alcohol content nearly twice the legal limit. The numbers are higher than last year, but that could be from increasing enforcement, said Pima County Sheriff's Lt. Karl Woolridge, who heads the task force. "The perfect deployment is one where we don't pick up any impaired drivers," he said. Representatives from Mothers Against Drunk Driving stood by the officers as they prepared to go out on patrol New Year's Eve. They wanted to thank the officers and remind them how important it is to keep drunken drivers off the road, said Holly Robles, a senior advocate for MADD. Sunday night's deployment was dedicated to the memory of Shelley Smith, who was killed in 1998 by a drunken driver. Smith was 33. Her mother, Mary Alice Delph, wanted officers to know that they're saving lives when they take impaired drivers off the road. "Drunk driving is one of the things that we can stop," she said. Robles, whose 25-year-old son, Scott Karl Hogg, |
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was killed by a drunken driver in 1992, rode with a patrol officer to send a message to those who drive impaired about what kind of impact their decision can have. She had a message for those arrested for DUI while enforcement increased during the holidays. This information is courtesy of http://www.azstarnet.com/ |
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