Three More OWI Arrests Added to Last Week's Tally

Reports of three more arrests for operating while intoxicated last weekend have surfaced in the Wauwatosa police blotter, on top of several already reported.

Two of the new reports were from a deployment last Saturday night of the High-Visibility Enforcement OWI Task Force, a grant-funded program to add officers on shifts where there is a high probability of drunken driving.

The third, though – presented here first – involved an impaired driver careering recklessly through the Village in mid-afternoon.

No place for this kind of driving

At 3:35 p.m. Sunday, a 45-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, as a first offense, after he was stopped on Wauwatosa Avenue at Lincoln Place for blatantly running two red lights and speeding through the Village.

The patrol officer who saw him said he went through the light on Harmonee Avenue at Menomonee River Parkway, at the foot of the Harmonee Bridge and heading north, after the light had turned from yellow to red while he was still three car lengths away. The officer said even the pedestrian signals had already changed to "walk" before the man's car cleared the intersection – one which includes audible safety signals for sight-impaired pedestrians.

The driver then accelerated rapidly up Harmonee and, the officer said, ran that light, too, before he could pull him over.

The man smelled of alcohol and admitted to having had one 16-ounce beer that afternoon. He said he was aware that he had run the red lights and had no excuse for doing so.

He had trouble keeping his balance during field sobriety tests and then blew a .116 blood alcohol concentration on a preliminary breath test, later repeated for evidence and recorded as a .10.

The suspect’s record showed a previous OWI conviction in 1996, but due to the law allowing for expiration of first offenses, if there is no re-offense within 10 years, the arrest was forwarded as a first-timer.

Giving in to the inevitable

At 2:17 a.m. Sunday, a 38-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, first offense, after a patrol officer saw him driving erratically and speeding on Blue Mound Road and pulled him over in the 7300 block.

After he was unable to count or recite the alphabet, he said, “You got me,” gave up, and was arrested. He blew a .16 BAC.

Unfamiliar with the territory and slightly over the limit

At 11:27 p.m. Saturday, a 60-year-old Beloit man was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving, first offense, after a patrol officer saw him make an illegal turn off Blue Mound Road onto North Mayfair Road.

The man said he was unfamiliar with the area and that was why he had made a turn out of a through lane, but as he explained, the officer smelled a moderate odor of alcohol. He performed fairly well on field sobriety tests but blew a .109 on a preliminary breath test and later a .09 BAC on an evidentiary test.