Police in Montgomery County, Maryland, are offering more details about the reasoning behind the disbanding of the decades-old alcohol enforcement unit. Assistant chief David McBain addressed reporters Tuesday morning, describing the move as a painful necessity for a department that’s about 200 officers short.
As it is, the unit is down to three officers, a corporal and a sergeant. News of the unit’s disbanding came late last week and was followed by a deadly crash on Interstate 270 over the weekend where a mother and daughter were hit by a driver who faces charges associated with driving while impaired by alcohol. McBain said the unit was actually on duty at the time and isn’t scheduled to begin their new assignments until next week.
Normally, the unit operates Wednesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. At the same time, the number of DUI arrests made by regular patrol officers has actually been increasing over the last year.
According to McBain, from Aug. 5 to Aug. 25, the last statistical reporting period, the district station officers arrested 42 people on suspicions of driving under the influence.
“At the same time, the alcohol initiatives unit arrested four individuals in that in that period of time,” he said. “Basically, to do the quick math, that’s 91% of all DUIs come from our patrol division.”
And from Jan. 1 of this year to now, district officers arrested 342 suspected impaired drivers and the alcohol initiatives unit arrested 95.
“So, 78% of all arrests in Montgomery County for DUI are coming from our patrol division, the same patrol division that I cannot continue to deplete by making or keeping these specialized units,” McBain said.
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The five officers are being spread to other units within the department that needed help. One will becoming a Community Engagement Officer at a local school. One is joining the department’s Crisis Response and Intervention team. The unit’s sergeant will join the Traffic Safety division, but he’s adamant that DUI checkpoints and saturation patrols will continue, and that patrol officers will keep getting drunk drivers off the road.
“When we’re talking about operational efficiency, we’re talking about how we can do the job better, how we can answer calls for service, how we can address concerns in the community as far as safety is concerned,” McBain said. “Not with just DUI, but with other traffic safety, with our paying attention to our crisis intervention, being able to address, you know, all the all the calls for service that we handle every single day.”
Still, he admitted the decision wasn’t easy, and it’s not one he was eager to make.
“Would I love to have this unit established, and robust, and the numbers where they used to be?” he asked. “Sure. But we’re just not in those times right now.”
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