Ledyard Police Presence Pays Off Over Long Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer and people tend to celebrate with outdoor barbeques and parties but sometimes they take things a too far. Police saturated the roads this weekend looking for signs of aggressive, unsafe and intoxicated drivers and Ledyard Police was no exception.

Ledyard Police Lt. Michael Finkelstein said there were extra officers patrolling for drunk drivers. He said 74 motor vehicle stops were made, and two people were charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.

“For this Memorial Day weekend we provided a much higher than normal police presence on our roads which hopefully provided a deterrent to those who may have chosen to operate under the Influence,” he said. “In turn, the high activity led to just a single accident over this long holiday weekend.”

Finkelstein said there was one accident this weekend but no injuries were reported.

Overall, the Connecticut State Police investigated 279 accidents, 57 of those had injuries, and there was one fatal accident this weekend, according to Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.

He said there were 77 DUI arrests this weekend, and 816 seatbelt violations and 1,797 speeding violations were issued from Friday to Monday.

Vance said last year’s Memorial Day weekend ended 260 car accidents, four of which were fatal, 70 DUI arrests and police issued 2,013 speeding tickets and 978 seatbelt tickets.