DUI

DUI BY EVAN WILLIAMS ewilliams@floridaweekly.com
A 19-YEAR-OLD WOMAN DRIVING OVER THE bridge from Fort Myers Beach made it close to the bend on San Carlos Boulevard where flowers still memorialize the spot Jesus Martinez, 6, and his brother Jordy, 1, were killed last year by a drunk driver.

PHOTOS BY EVAN WILLIAMS/ FLORIDA WEEKLY

The woman from the beach was drunk by official standards. She was one of 15 arrested for DUI of 877 drivers that night who experienced one of the Lee County sheriff's sobriety checkpoints, a measure designed to reduce-alcohol related crashes.

At a roadblock, traffic was funneled into the parking lot of The Beach Bowl, bathed in artificial light, a brighter-than-day stage set where one culture met another.

On the one hand, there were the drivers from Fort Myers Beach. Some had imbibed on that warm weekend in late March, many on break from college. They drove from bars and parties, leaving a laid-back lifestyle titillated by alcohol and other drugs. They came from a place where it's easy to believe you can order one more drink and then another as the night wears on — "one for the road," as some bartender with a dark wit has observed — and make it home OK.

Above: Four drivers are handcuffed after being nabbed at a DUI checkpoint. Below: A deputy performes a sobriety test on a driver.

Those drivers suddenly found themselves maneuvering through four lanes of orange cones in a world of flashlights and uniforms where hard, black and white distinctions were made between being sober and breaking the law. The 19-year-old, petite and blonde, was one of the latter.

She came close to passing a field sobriety tests designed to guage her level of impairment, like walking a straight line, touching her nose and holding her leg in the air for 10 seconds. That's why Detective Ed Sommers, a veteran traffic homicide investigator with the sheriff's office was startled after she took a breathalyzer test. It showed she had an estimated blood alcohol level of .25 — more than twice the legal limit of .08 — and high enough to indicate, along with her performance on the field tests, that she was an experienced drinker. At 19, an old pro.

EVAN WILLIAMS/FLORIDA WEEKLY Motorists go through a recent DUI checkpoint on Fort Myers Beach.

"Someone that doesn't drink a lot of alcohol can't do that," Detective Sommers said. "Or you have to be someone that steps their way up to it."

Being under 21, she won't be convicted of DUI, but could lose her license for six months; although if she had hit and killed someone she could have been charged with DUI manslaughter and faced up to 15 years in prison.

Even for first-time DUI offenders, the consequences are harsh. First they get "a free ride downtown," said Traffic Unit Commander Lt. James Drzymala, nodding toward the van where two officers waited to take offending motorists to the jail in downtown Fort Myers — a disappointing end to any evening.

The total costs usually reach more than $8,000 with fines and legal fees. And drivers' lives are also disrupted because they lose their license for six months and can face 50 hours of community service, a year-long probation and an alcohol awareness course.

EVAN WILLIMAS/FLORIDA WEEKLY TOP: Deputies conduct a field sobriety test while another offer films the test.

Lt. Drzymala isn't unsympathetic to drinkers per se — "We aren't anti-drinking," he said, "That's a common misconception." But if a person has what the state considers too much alcohol before turning the ignition, then to him that driver's car is "a 3,000 pound missile." And if they decide to drive, they are in his eyes no different than any dangerous or deranged criminal.

"Take someone who recklessly pulls out a gun and starts shooting at a crowd," he said. "How is that different or any less premeditated?"

The set up

The sobriety checkpoint was no surprise to many drivers since the date, although not the location, was published in the daily paper a week ahead of time. In addition, Lt. Drzymala pointed out that word of the checkpoint travels fast by cell phone, text messages and announcements in bars.

"I can assure you, 30 minutes after we opened, there wasn't a bar on Fort Myers Beach that didn't know we were here," he said. "We're getting the people who weren't paying attention."

LEFT: A woman is arrested and handcuffed before being taken to jail.

But he is counting on the effect to reach beyond the arrestees —there were 15 taken in for DUI that night — to the hundreds who experienced it and friends who heard about it second hand. That, too, could be a deterrent to driving drunk.

"It's well worth it to the public if the one person we stop tonight could be that one person that doesn't go down the road and kill a family of four," he said. "But if 800 cars go through the checkpoint with two people per car, now there are 1,600 people that went and told their friends about it. These are things you can't measure."

The sheriff's office and its partners set up about one checkpoint per month at high-risk areas of Lee County to get drunk drivers off the road and deter others from trying it. And after 15 years of setting up the checkpoints, it's become a routine exercise for Lt. Drzymala.

"It's not top secret," he said. "It's not big and scary."

Lt. Drzymala showed up at the Beach Bowl parking lot about 10 p.m. that night to get the operation started by 11 p.m. He was in charge of more than 40 law enforcement officials from the sheriff's office, partners from Lee County's various police agencies, the Department of Transportation and volunteer groups.

"We invite everyone to play," he said.

The deputies made quick work setting up the lights; cameras to film the field sobriety tests (which might be used as evidence in court); folding tables to set up laptops at the "booking" table and the BAT mobile, where suspected drunk drivers take the breathalyzer test, by blowing into a disposable mouthpiece hooked up to a machine called the Intoxilyzer 8000.

As the night air cooled, the traffic came off the beach in intermittent waves. Officers stopped cars as they passed to shine a flashlight inside, looking for common signs of drunk drivers like watery, bloodshot eyes or slurred speech.

"Or an open container of Budweiser on the center console or whatever it may be," Lt. Drzymala said.

Volunteers from a group of citizens who support the sheriff's office, like Dave Sully, 64, used reflective orange wands to direct traffic through the cones.

"We're trying to keep things moving," said Mr. Sully, a part-time resident of Eden, N.Y., who helps with sobriety checkpoints in that state as well.

If a driver was taken out of the car and asked to perform a field sobriety test, a "runner," like a valet, takes his or her car to where a tow truck is waiting if an arrest is made.

One group, the Lee County Sheriff's Office Citizens Academy, had come simply to observe the proceedings, which were generally quiet and peaceful. During the slow times, officers talked and joked with each other in an alert, onduty kind of way. Another group, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, brought pizza and sodas for the workers, many of whom would be there well after the checkpoint closed — until 4 or 5 a.m. — finishing the paperwork, packing up the equipment and unloading it.

Although some have called the sobriety checkpoints entrapment, the Supreme Court ruled that the benefit to public safety is worth the relatively small intrusion, which takes about two minutes. Records show alcohol-related fatalities and injuries generally declined in Lee County in the last five years, from 842 in 2003 to 754 in 2007.

MADD has also taken up the cause of sobriety checkpoints.

"Just like people understand the purpose of a red light — it's for public safety," said Brenda Gellinger, the community action site leader for MADD in Fort Myers, and a DUI victims advocate for the sheriff's office. "That's the purpose of a checkpoint." Intoxication: the great equalizer

Most of the arrestees went quietly. One man, spouting profanities, was led off to the jail van held in an arm lock by two officers. There were many such stories of people who had been arrested, from the pathetic to the stoic ones; the amusing and violent; the pretty and ugly. After all, DUI is one of society's most common crimes.

"I think most people probably have driven under the influence," said MADD volunteer Ms. Gellinger. "Not everybody who drinks, but the majority has, at least until they were educated or were affected by getting a DUI or knowing someone who did. Something has got to hit home with people."

Everyone, it seems, has their own DUI experience — some of them involving horrible violence, disfigurement, death, the lives of both the victims and offenders upended and destroyed. In the best case scenarios, drivers are caught once or know someone who was caught for DUI, and it deters them from driving drunk. Lt. Drzymala recalled once being impressed by a drunken gymnast who skillfully executed the "walk and turn" and the "one leg stand."

"She was one of those who threw in a hand stand too," he said. "It translated into a really good field sobriety (performance) — but she was snookered."

In the end, that was all that mattered. You were either snookered or you were not. The faces of the people arrested were alternately sweet and forgivable or haggard and distressed. A young student that night, bronzed and barefoot, was exasperated with the irony of her situation.

"I'm going to school for law enforcement," she said incredulously, standing there in handcuffs.

A drowsy looking woman with curly hair and a pink tank top was stoic until a deputy began to recite her the Miranda Rights and placed her in handcuffs. Then, her face collapsed into a mask of tears.

Corp. Lenny Gould, who MADD honored for making more than 100 DUI arrests in 2007, was not entirely unsympathetic to the rough road the arrestees had ahead.

"It's sad," he said. "Unfortunately, drunk drivers kill people."

That was something to keep in mind when watching the elderly or crippled getting handcuffed. An older, heavyset man with a walker and a bad hip was arrested, although Lt. Drzymala allowed him to be driven in a standard patrol car instead of waiting in the van. "Don't let it be said that we don't have compassion," he said.

But taking a hard line was a part of the job description. There was no room for doubt while in uniform. There were no excuses for drivers who failed the field tests or blew a .08 or higher, even if they were brilliant gymnasts, law students or even having the worst night of their lives.

Those arguments — the finer points of empathy or other disputes that might resonate with a judge or jury — would be left to the attorneys.

The night at The Beach Bowl, meanwhile, was a form of combat against those 3,000 pound missiles hurtling down the road. The sheriff's office traffic unit in their white shirts and the deputies in their green were obliged to remain true to their professional duty. So they pressed on, warriors for the working day until the last blue minivan rolled through the cones early Saturday morning.

Statistics

>> Lee County alcohol-related crashes

2003: 800

2004: 765

2005: 756

2006: 654

2007: 715

>> Lee County alcohol-related crashes with fatalities or injuries
2003: 42 fatalities and 676 injuries
2004: 32 fatalities and 540 injuries
2005: 54 fatalities and 557 injuries
2006: 40 fatalities and 468 injuries
2007: 39 fatalities and 534 injuries
>> In 2007, percentage of crashes in each city that were alcohol related Fort Myers Beach: 18 alcohol-related crashes made up 41.86 percent of total crashes

Cape Coral: 150 alcohol-related crashes made up 10.39 percent of total

Fort Myers: 137 alcohol-related crashes made up 7.1 percent of the total

Lehigh Acres: 9 alcohol -elated crashes made up 11.84 percent of the total

Source: Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles Traffic Crash Statistics Report, 2007