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HPD may make fewer DWI arrests

07:15 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 19, 2006

By Dan Lauck / 11 News
KHOU-TV

There are concerns that Houston police may soon make fewer DWI arrests on purpose.

HPD officers may not be making as many DWI arrests.
It stems from a confidential HPD memo obtained only by 11 News. It’s a memo some say means officers will be forced off the streets to take care of paperwork they’ve been handing off to others.

Some fear the new policy may put you in danger on the road.

Patrol officers rarely go looking for drunk drivers. They don’t need to. The drunks invariably identify themselves.

There’s no question that the carnage left by driving drunk, while once a disgrace, is still much too high.

Patrol cops know that, they just don’t want to make the arrest.

“The process could take three hours,” said Hans Marticiuc, president of the Houston Police Officers Union.

The paperwork can take longer on a DWI than on a murder case.

So Tuesday, as Marticiuc was reading the department’s new policy, which requires the patrol officers to carry the case almost to the cell door, some patrol officers were telling 11 News they’d write fewer DWIs in the future.

“I can’t imagine any of our officers not pulling over a drunk driver that’s in front of them,” he said.

“It’s an unfortunate event for patrol officers …,” said Bob Walsh, U of H professor and ex-police officer.

Walsh would have loved to hand off his DWI cases, like HPD.

“There are very few departments that have the resources so patrol officers could turn over their cases for processing,” he said.

That now includes the Houston police department, which is short nearly 1,000 officers.

“It all goes back to staffing,” said Marticiuc.

Tuesday afternoon 11 News went off in search of patrol officers in their cars, working city streets. We just wanted pictures for our story.

We ended up driving 34 miles, much of it down Westheimer, and saw just one police officer.