WSP Happy With Nine DUI Arrests Over Weekend At Lake Chelan

Washington State Patrol (WSP) is happy with the total of nine DUI arrests over Memorial Day weekend in the Lake Chelan area.

WSP District 6 partnered with the Chelan County Sheriff's Office for a High Visibility Enforcement (HiVE) patrol on Saturday and Sunday at Lake Chelan.

Public Information Trooper Jeremy Weber says one officer was responsible for almost half the arrests.

"One of our troopers, he's actually one of our drug recognition experts, Saturday night he got four DUIs," said Weber. "I think I've gotten three in one night in my career. And I thought I was going to go crazy because that's just a lot of work. And he got four. Just very good at the recognition part of it, and good at his job."

The High Visibility Enforcement was well publicized in advance.

The organized patrol included one person who was designated to the breath unit, who exclusively ran people through breath tests at a substation.

WSP's data shows fatality and serious injury crashes increase by more than 50 percent between April and May.

Weber said the HiVE patrols had access to data compiled over past holidays to determine where to place resources at strategic times for the greatest impact on safety.

The HiVE patrol included K9 troopers, Drug Recognition Experts, Aggressive Driving Apprehension Team members and all available partner agencies to assist.

The effort started Friday, but the most law enforcement resources were made available on Saturday and Sunday.

The Memorial Day weekend draws a lot of tourists to Lake Chelan, and Weber says tourist DUIs were especially inconvenienced.

"If you get stopped for DUI and arrested, you have to figure out what to do with your car," said Weber. "If you can't find a local person to come pick up the car, it has to be towed and put under a 12-hour hold. That happened to a lot of them because they were vacationers."