Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993 TAG: 9310040086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The number of impaired-driving arrests by the department has grown from nine in 1991 to 62 last year to 68 in the first nine months of this year.
At this rate, the department will exceed 90 arrests this year - more than twice the total who were charged in 1989, 1990 and 1991 combined.
Since Sheriff Reed Kelly took office in January 1992, he's pushed for tougher enforcement of drunken-driving laws by the department.
In the past, Kelly said, the department generally left much of the responsibility for enforcing these laws to the state police.
"It used to be considered a state police problem," Kelly said. "That was the conventional wisdom, anyway."
But he said drunken driving is "the most immediate danger to the citizens of the county," and the Sheriff's Office has a responsibility to do something about it.
"We used to get a lot of calls: `So-and-so's driving drunk.' Or: `Why don't you do something about the speeders on Easy Street.' It just got to the point where I was tired of saying, `We don't do that.' "
Kelly has emphasized training for his road deputies on how to spot someone who's driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs - and how to run them through the tests that establish enough evidence for an arrest.
In the past, when Botetourt deputies would make a drunken-driving stop, they frequently would have to call in a state trooper to perform the Breathalyzer test. The department had only one or two officers who were certified on the Breathalyzer, Kelly said.
Now, the sheriff said, 10 of his deputies have been trained, and there's always at least one on each shift who can perform the test.
Overall, the number of drunken-driving arrests in the county has stayed about the same - between 120 and 140 a year. Mainly, what has happened is that the Sheriff's Office has increased its share of the arrests while the number of arrests by state police - with fewer troopers on the road these days because of budget cuts - has gone down.
"We're just getting to the place where we should have been some time ago," Kelly said. "In a year or two, I think you'll see the numbers level off and then start to go down."
Law-enforcement officials in Virginia say greater public awareness and tougher enforcement has reduced the number of drunken drivers on the road, though there's been less success in stopping hard-core drinkers who drive even after their licenses have been taken away.
In Montgomery County, the number of arrests made by the Sheriff's Office has dropped from 107 in 1991 to 75 in 1992 to 15 through the first eight months of this year.
In Franklin County, the number of drunken-driving arrests by the Sheriff's Office has dropped from as many as 120 a year in the late 1980s to about 70 a year. Capt. Robert W. Strickler said the county has continued to go after drunken drivers aggressively, with the help of state and federal "selective enforcement" grants, but the department's efforts and greater community awareness seem to have reduced the number of impaired drivers on the road.
That has held true in other counties, too, though at least one other Western Virginia county has seen an increase in drunken-driving arrests. The Roanoke County Sheriff's Office made 279 arrests in 1992. In the first six months of this year, it made 183.
In Botetourt, Kelly said his department has stepped up enforcement of drunken-driving laws without an increase in staff - and without taking away from other duties.
"It's been something that we've emphasized, but not to the detriment of anything else." The department's clearance rate for other offenses is up, he said.
Actually, he said, deputies who are actively looking for drunken drivers and other traffic scofflaws make a big contribution to a department's law-enforcement efforts.
"The best tool that we've got in law enforcement is still the traffic stop," Kelly said. "A lot of the best drug cases I've seen have come from traffic stops."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***