Police Tell Tales to Deter Binge Drinking

“I arrested an alien once,” says Lieutenant Mike Hernandez. “I got a call about a guy that said he was an alien and his parents were parbos…It’s a disease that kills dogs,” Hernandez says, noting he hadn’t been sure as to what the guy meant by ‘parbos’.

“I said, ‘I’m a devil dog, I was in the Marine Corps,’” Hernandez continues. The guy then exclaimed, ‘Then you know what I mean!’ and claimed to also be a marine, but “he didn’t know the song,” Hernandez said. “I sang the Marine Corps Hymn to him all the way back to the station.”

Then there was the naked guy on the bridge, with whom Officer Anderson had to tussle before subduing him and putting him in the police car. In both of the stories, the men were drunk, and as New Year’s Eve approaches, citizens are encouraged to know their limits and designate a driver, because nobody wants to be remembered as that guy.

Drinking is a problem around the holidays, even for non-alcoholics, who may make an exception to their regular habits and consume a bit more on festive occasions, says Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor Jerry Wheeley.

“A lot of binge drinkers think they are fine, they’re not alcoholics and they think they can drive,” Wheeley says.

And indeed during the holidays DWIs do increase slightly. Sergeant Korby Kennedy says alcohol-related accidents increase by 2-4 percent this time of year, noting the seriousness of crashes involving alcohol.

Kennedy says, “with holiday parties and such, they always go up this time of year, but overall, it doesn’t go up by much. More times than not, if it’s a fatality crash, more often than not it’s involving alcohol.”

Last New Year’s Eve, a fatality crash turned into a pile-up when another intoxicated driver ran into a cop car.

“It was [a crazy night] Last New Year’s Eve,” says SAPD Officer Mike Gesh. “We had a fatality…we were investigating that fatality when another drunk ran smack into a police car that was blocking the road for that fatality. It almost hit the car that was way off the road in a creek…Hopefully, that won’t happen this year,” Gesh said.

As with most holidays the SAPD will have extra units out patrolling the streets on New Year’s Eve in an effort to deter some from driving who have had a bit much, but police are skeptical that the public will take consumption issues seriously.

“It doesn’t seem to matter how much you advertise it, to beware. We advertise it all the time, extra units out, watch for that,” Gesh says. “When people are sober, they think they’re not going to do it, but when they get alcohol in them it impairs their judgement.”

Officer Bryan Bylsma compares intoxication issues to the madhouse seen in stores on Black Friday. He said, “People act stupid. They get a little bit of alcohol into them and the judgement that they have…it lowers their inhibitions.”

According to drinkinanddriving.org, some 12,000 people die annually in an accident involving drunk driving. The website features an interactive map that grades counties in the U.S. by the average number of incidents reported each year, and Tom Green County received a D, with 82 DWI arrests made for each 10,000 people annually.

Shockingly, New Year’s Eve is not considered the most dangerous holiday in terms of drunk driving, rather comes in second place behind Thanksgiving. But regardless of the ranking, the message is the same.

“Make sure you’ve got somebody that’s a designated driver,” said Bylsma. “Don’t take the chance. Not only could you be arrested for drunk driving, but in a moment’s notice, you could be driving down the road and kill somebody.”

Taxi services will run throughout the city on New Year’s Eve, and San Angelo Limo has partnered with many local bars to provide Arrive Alive in Style, a limo shuttle service operating between multiple locations all night long. More info on that here.