OWI Task Force Arrests 4 Drivers Over Holiday

The arm of the Southeast Wisconsin Multijurisdictional OWI Task Force was deployed again on Memorial Day weekend.

And, as usual, a number of drinking drivers showed they have not learned that holidays bring out extra, dedicated patrols watching just for them.

Task Force officers did not even have to work for two the four intoxicated drivers they reeled in. One obligingly drove into a ditch and another passed out at a gas pump.

Tired, tipsy and totaled

At 11:09 p.m. Sunday, a 36-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, after he ran his car into the ditch and crashed into a tree off the east side of North Mayfair Road in the 3500 block.

The driver admitted he'd had a couple but said he had fallen asleep at the wheel from fatigue, not intoxication, because he'd gotten only four hours sleep the night before.

Nonetheless, he performed poorly on a field sobriety test and then blew a .137 blood alcohol content on a preliminary breath test, later registering a .11 on the evidentiary test.

His tank was already full

At 10:08 p.m. Sunday, police were called to the . on an employee’s report that a man had been parked in his pickup truck next to the gas pumps for more than an hour and had refused to move when asked.

Officers found the man stopped between two pump islands, lying on his side asleep in his reclined seat.

They woke him and immediately smelled alcohol on his breath. He identified himself as a 24-year-old West Bend man. A records check revealed that he was on probation through the Department of Corrections, had two open criminal cases in Washington County, for his second and third OWIs, and a long history of bail jumping.

As a condition of both his probation and the two pending OWI cases, he was to have maintained absolute sobriety. He at first refused a breath test and resisted arrest, but after being handcuffed and seated in the back of a squad car, he requested a test.

He blew a .16 BAC and was booked and turned over to county jailers.

Just hurrying to help a sick friend

At 2:03 a.m. Sunday, a 28-year-old Shorewood woman was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, after she was pulled over in the 10700 block of Blue Mound Road.

A patrol officer saw her make an illegal left turn, then accelerate rapidly from a stop light, make an unsignaled lane change and then abruptly pull over to the curb – whereupon a passenger opened her door, leaned out and vomited.

The driver said she was driving because she needed to get her overserved friend home.

But she was in little better shape than her friend and could not complete most of the steps of a field sobriety test, including the recitation of the alphabet. She refused a breath test and was taken to for a mandatory blood draw.

If I'm not too drunk now, I will be soon

At 10:18 p.m. Saturday, a 24-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested for drunken driving, his first offense, after he was pulled over for making an illegal left turn at North 70th Street and Blue Mound Road.

The officer smelled alcohol, and the man admitted having had “a couple of beers” – which seems to be the standard answer. He may have compounded suspicion when he told the officer he made the improper left turn because he had gotten lost looking for the bar he intended to visit next.

He performed poorly on the standardized field sobriety test and later blew two evidentiary breath samples registering a .08, the prohibited blood alcohol level for driving in Wisconsin.