Task Force Hauls in Six Drunken Drivers in Tosa Over Holiday Weekend

The participates with other law enforcement agencies in the Southeast Wisconsin Drunk DrivingTask Force, which carries out coordinated sweeps to get drunken drivers off the roads.

The task force often operates on holiday weekends, and it frequently even advertises its intentions as a way to encourage smart and responsible behavior among those who have been drinking, such as having a designated driver or hiring a taxi.

The task force was out Saturday night and Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, and the results show that, as usual, some people just can't get the message. Six drivers were arrested that night, including one for his fourth time – and one who drove drunk to the police station to pick up his wife after she had been arrested for OWI.

According to officers' reports:

• At 10:05 p.m. Saturday, a 21-year-old Wind Lake man was arrested for his second OWI after he was pulled over in the 6100 block of Blue Mound Road for driving 50 mph in a 30 mph zone. He had a .085 blood alcohol content as measured in a breath test.

• At 11:41 p.m. Saturday, a 21-year-old Oshkosh man was arrested for his second time as a drunken driver at North Mayfair Road and Research Drive after he was seen driving south in the northbound lanes of Mayfair with only his parking lights on. The man was unable or unwilling to respond to any directions from the officer and so was handcuffed and taken to a hospital for a mandatory blood draw.

• At 1:15 a.m. Sunday, a 48-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for his fourth drunken driving offense after a task force officer saw him driving erratically and pulled him over in the 6900 block of Honey Creek Parkway. He denied he had been drinking, but a .18 BAC doesn’t lie. The officer also found an open bottle of beer in the car.

• At 1:37 a.m. Sunday, an 18-year-old Wauwatosa man was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, in the 9600 block of West Lisbon Avenue, after he was pulled over for speeding. He told officers, “I’m not going to lie to you, I’m a little drunk.” And he was, failing a field test and blowing a .13 on a breath test.

• At  1:36 a.m. Sunday, a 35-year-old Milwaukee woman was arrested for drunken driving after she was seen driving erratically on West North Avenue at North 60th Street. And that woman's arrest led to one more....

• At 8:10 a.m. Sunday, her husband, a 36-year-old Milwaukee man, was arrested for drunken driving, first offense, after he showed up at the police station reeking of alcohol and clearly intoxicated and later, despite the sternest kind of warnings from officers, got in his car and drove away. But not very far.

The man had first arrived hours earlier with a sober friend to get his wife. He was so obviously drunk that officers refused to release her to him. It was not clear from reports why he did not just ask his friend to get his wife out – any sober adult can do so.

At any rate, the friend left and the husband fell asleep in the police station lobby for three hours. Then he left, although it was also not clear just what transportation he used.

He came back, though, this time driving alone. An officer saw him park in a handicapped space (all others spots were open) and enter the station.

Inside, he again asked for his wife. Again, he was told she couldn't be released to him because he still appeared to be intoxicated. He was unsteady on his feet and still smelled strongly of alcohol, so officers gave him a breath test – he registered a .107 BAC – and ordered him not to drive.

He lurched out of the lobby as an officer in a loud and clear voice advised him one last time not to get into his car. Which is exactly what he did, while an officer sat waiting.

He drove out of the lot, closely followed by a squad car with its emergency lights on. Nevertheless, he continued driving, to the left of the center line, south on North 116th Street all the way to Watertown Plank Road, where he stopped at a red light in the right-turn-only lane while signaling a left turn, and with his car fully beyond the stop line and partly into the intersection.

There, he finally stopped, but he still refused to follow any instructions from the officer and had to be handcuffed under force. He and his wife were eventually released together after their joint mandatory 12-hour hold for sobriety was up.