Pinal County 3rd
best in Arizona for DUI enforcement
Pinal County Sheriff’s Office
Paul Babeu
Sheriff
February, 2010
Florence, Ariz. - Our Pinal County Regional DUI Task Force was created in March of 2009 and in less than one year we achieved top tier ranking of 3rd place out of all 16 DUI task forces in Arizona. Our new Motorcycle Team headed up by Sgt. Matt Thomas, worked closely with all local Police Departments. We worked 5 nights per week in December and arrested nearly 200 impaired drivers.
DPS Officer Brain Petersen and Sheriff Paul Babeu.
Officer Petersen, who along
with all our Deputies and local Police Officers have participated in Pinal
County's Regional DUI Task Force.
We continue to work every holiday and major events
with our high profile and zero tolerance program. When working these special details,
we maintain full coverage of staff to respond to emergency calls, yet we bring on
at least 10 and sometimes more than 30 additional Deputies and local Police Officers
and target a certain area of Pinal County. We have been in every area of the county
and have achieved great success through this DUI saturation.
The message is clear – you drive impaired by drugs or alcohol in Pinal County and
you will be arrested. There are no breaks. You will not be allowed to park your
car and get a ride home. You will go directly to jail.
PCSO has sponsored premium training for all local officers in Drug Recognition,
which is an often overlooked and dangerous impairment of many drivers. Less than
1% of all sworn officers in America have this specialized training. National trainers
Tim Gaffney of PCSO, Matt Slaughter of Mesa PD and Tom Gaupel from GOHS provided
this training to our motorcycle team and many local Officers. This will further
protect our families by improving officer’s ability to recognize and investigate
all forms of DUI.
Together, our local Police Chiefs with your Sheriff’s Office have worked to improve
traffic safety in a more meaningful manner. The Pinal County Regional DUI Task Force
includes the Sheriff's Office, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and the
following police departments: Casa Grande, Gila River, Apache Junction, Coolidge,
Florence, Eloy, Ak-Chin and Maricopa.
Aggressively enforcing DUI laws are most important since it is the leading cause
of death in Pinal County for ages 6 to 33 and one in every three drivers will be
involved in a DUI related car wreck in their driving lifetime.
We have made thousands of traffic stops and most are not impaired, yet we then have
the opportunity to check for other violations. Deputies and Officers check for a
valid Driver’s License, current vehicle registration, mandatory car insurance or
even a warrant for their arrest. Arizona has among the highest number of uninsured
vehicles, which is why our insurance costs are so expensive and another reason why
many vehicles flee the scene of a car wreck. Many have arrested many because of
these offenses and we have towed their cars and issued hundreds of additional traffic
citations. All of this zero tolerance enforcement keeps our roads, streets and highways
safer for all of our Pinal families.
These improvements are more examples of the fine work that our 700 full time men
and women have achieved. I’m very proud of their hard work ethic and their discipline,
as their work load (crime) has increased. Together, we are fully committed to improve
operations and law enforcement service, until we attain our goal in becoming the
finest Sheriff’s Office in Arizona.
Respectfully,
Paul R. Babeu, Sheriff
Pinal County, Arizona
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