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OVI Task Force to have presence during St. Patrick's Day celebrations
st. patrick’s day
Police to step up patrols over weekend
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
There will be an active presence by law enforcement on the roadways as Valley residents celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this weekend.
Many officers from participating agencies of the Operating a Vehicle Impaired Task Force gathered in Canfield on Thursday morning.
“Our primary goal is to make the roadways of Mahoning County safer. We really try to do that by changing the behavior of the motoring public. We want them to make better decisions about drinking and driving,” said Scott Weamer, Canfield assistant police chief. “We accomplish all these goals by doing two things: education and enforcement.”
Weamer gave statistics on how crashes have decreased in Mahoning County from 2010 to 2014. The OVI Task Force was not in place in 2010. The biggest number he gave was a 91.7 percent reduction in alcohol-related fatal crashes.
“I think those statistics mean that there are a lot of people doing the right thing. Making good decisions. But saying that, there’s still that percentage that are not making good decisions,” said Lt. Nakia Hendrix of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. “We still have lives being lost on the roadway in Mahoning County unnecessarily.”
Susan Viars, coordinator of Mahoning Safe Communities hosted by the New Middletown Police Department, talked about how posters have been added to education efforts. She said she distributed 1,000 coasters and 10 posters from her organization to area bars. Those included the Austintown and Boardman locations of Buffalo Wild Wings and Quaker Steak & Lube and Quench in Boardman.
“We’re not telling people that they can’t have a good time and celebrate. We want them to celebrate responsibly, plan ahead,” she said.
Weamer detailed that from 2009 to 2013, 276 lives were lost nationally to drunken-driving crashes over the St. Patrick’s holiday weekend, and 2 out of 5 crashes in 2013 involved drunken driving.
This year’s OVI Task Force funding began back in October, and those numbers total 34 OVI arrests, 10 felony arrests and 76 citations for driving under suspension.
“There’s an ancillary benefit to us being an OVI Task Force. It’s not just checkpoints and impaired drivers,” Weamer said. “We’ll put anywhere from six to 10 additional officers near a particular intersection [for a blitz]. That’s good for that community with the extra law enforcement.”
On top of a checkpoint in Mahoning County on Saturday, Weamer said police will have a presence on roads on St. Patrick’s Day itself, Tuesday.
Officers from these communities and enforcement agencies participate in the OVI task force: Austintown, Beaver, Boardman, Canfield City, Goshen, Jackson, Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Mill Creek MetroParks, Milton, New Middletown, highway patrol, Poland Township, Springfield, Youngstown, and Youngstown State University.