Local chiefs concerned over possible elimination of DWI-checkpoint funding

Cape Girardeau and Jackson police chiefs voiced concern this week about the decision of the Missouri House to scrap funding for sobriety checkpoints.

Without such funding, local law-enforcement agencies would hold few, if any, checkpoints to stop drunken drivers, Cape Girardeau police chief Wes Blair and Jackson police chief James Humphreys said.

“It would severely limit our ability to do it,” Blair said. “I think it is a little shortsighted.”

Humphreys said checkpoints are about traffic safety.

“It is not about arrests,” he said. “The primary goal is to deter driving after drinking.”

Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan said checkpoints are a law-enforcement tool, but eliminating them would not be “the end of the world.”

Jordan said the state is faced with a tight budget, and lawmakers have to cut somewhere.

“They have to live within the budget,” the sheriff said.

But Meghan Carter, executive director of the Missouri chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers based in St. Louis, said Tuesday the legislative action would not save the state money.

“It is not affecting the total budget,” she said. Checkpoint funding is “just being line-itemed out.”

House lawmakers recently passed a budget that would provide $1 of state funds for checkpoints in fiscal 2018. The budget goes before the Senate.

A core group of conservative Republicans in the House supported the bill, arguing the checkpoints violate due-process rights and protections against unreasonable search and seizure, according to The Associated Press.

Eleven states prohibit driving-while-intoxicated checkpoints, according to online information from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Blair said nationally, there has been “a longstanding debate” over constitutional issues surrounding sobriety checkpoints.

The checkpoints block a street so all drivers are funneled through a group of officers who stop drivers even if they don’t appear to be doing anything illegal, according to The AP.

Jordan said, “There are civil libertarians who can’t stand it.”

But the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of such checkpoints, arguing the state’s interest in preventing drunken driving outweighs the intrusion on drivers.

Blair said, “The whole focus is to get drunken drivers off the road.”

He added his department and others partner to man checkpoints in the region.

Cape Girardeau police officers recently assisted with a DWI checkpoint in Kennett, Missouri.

Funding provided by the state pays the manpower cost, he said. Without such funding, Blair said he would not commit officers to conduct checkpoints.

Blair estimated his officers are involved in about eight checkpoints annually.

Humphreys said checkpoints are “manpower intensive,” typically involving a dozen or more officers from several departments.

He said eliminating DWI checkpoints will hamper his department’s ability to protect the community.

Humphreys said while some motorists are arrested as a result of DWI checkpoints, there is no way to tell how many motorists decide not to drink and drive because of them.

Blair agreed checkpoints primarily serve as a deterrent to driving drunk.

Now that the issue is before the Senate, Blair said he expects law-enforcement groups to lobby senators in an effort to retain checkpoint funding.

State Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, R-Shell Knob, who pushed for eliminating funding for DWI checkpoints, argued saturation patrols, in which officers look for drivers who commit moving violations such as speeding, is a more cost-effective way of getting drunken drivers off the roads, The AP reported.

“In 2016 alone, there were more than 3,000 arrests as a result of saturation patrols. There were far fewer as a result of checkpoints, and the checkpoint arrests cost over $1,000 apiece to perform,” Fitzpatrick was quoted as saying.

But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sobriety checkpoints reduce drunken-driving fatalities by 20 percent.

Over the past three years, checkpoints have led to 4,152 arrests in Missouri, according to MADD’s Carter. State funding for those checkpoints totaled more than $3.8 million over that period of time, she said.

“It is concerning to us that they want to cut a program that works and saves lives,” she said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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