Monday, October 25, 2004
The mission is to reduce fatalities and injuries from crashes.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Halloween weekend will see more police on Mahoning County streets enforcing DUI laws.
The goal is to reduce alcohol-related crashes and fatalities.
Mahoning County commissioners, in partnership with the District Board of Health, received an $80,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Public Safety for a DUI task force, said Tracy Styka, board spokesman. The money will be used to pay police working the task force on an overtime basis.
Twenty-one law enforcement agencies in Mahoning County are participating.
Halloween blitz
For the Halloween blitz, 11 communities will see a crackdown on impaired drivers: Youngstown, Struthers, Austintown, Boardman, Beaver, Canfield, Milton, Poland, Goshen, Jackson and Smith.
Motorists are encouraged to report impaired drivers by calling 800-GRAB-DUI or *DUI on a cell phone.
In Youngstown, two officers will be assigned to work DUI enforcement from 11 p.m. Saturday until 4 a.m. Sunday, said Lt. Robin Lees, Youngstown Police Department spokesman. The officers will patrol traffic corridors that have a concentration of bars and accidents, such as Market Street and South and Mahoning avenues, he said.
"We're always grateful to receive additional money so we can put more officers in the field to work specific enforcement, in this case DUIs, which have always been a problem," Lees said of the new grant. "I want to emphasize that we're not targeting particular businesses."
Patrol to participate
Lt. Brian Girts, Ohio State Highway Patrol, Canfield post commander, said the patrol has its own grant for DUI enforcement but will still participate in the new task force. He said troopers' likely areas of enforcement for Halloween will be Austintown, Boardman, Milton and Jackson townships, which generally produce a high number of DUI arrests and crashes.
Girts said the DUI task force will likely do another saturation patrol on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving. He said the night before Thanksgiving is typically the biggest drinking night of the year.
meade@vindy.com