Fair Oaks Police Target Drunken Drivers

As commander of the Fair Oaks District Station, Capt. Ron Lantz has made drunken driving violations a priority for his officers.

For the holiday season, he's cracking down even harder than usual, assigning five officers to nothing but DWI enforcement.

"The first night alone, those guys made more DWI arrests in Fair Oaks than were made in a countywide initiative for road control," Lantz said at the Dec. 6 Citizen Advisory Committee meeting at the district station.

The targeted patrols, along with DWI checkpoints, "shoulder tap" operations and business compliance checks are part of Fairfax County Police Department's Safe December program.

"Shoulder taps" are an attempt to catch people over the age of 21 willing to buy alcohol for underage people.

"College kids are home for the holidays so we want to nip it. As you guys know the dangers with alcohol and youth driving, we want to nip it before it happens," Lantz said.

FCPD cited 246 people under age 21 with driving after illegally consuming alcohol in 2010. Through the third quarter of 2011, there have been 193. In three shoulder tap operations in 2010, 15 people chose to purchase alcohol for the underaged person.

Last December, Fairfax County Police made 317 DWI arrests. Of those 252 were men, and 65 were women.

In 2011, Fairfax County has had 546 alcohol-related crashes through October out of a total of out of 8,214, according to an FCPD news release. In 2010, of 10,471 crashes, 730 of them involved alcohol.

"Unfortunately with DWIs, they're always out there," Lantz said. "Some nights you find the offenders, some nights you don't. But they're always still there."

For more information on Safe December, read the release from FCPD.