|
|
|
 |
| |
|
Austin Bar DWI
The entire DWI enforcement unit works every Friday evening. The unit is split with half working Tuesday through Friday evenings, and the remaining working Wednesday through Saturday evenings. The shifts are rotated every four weeks. The current sergeant for the unit reports that officers serving on the Unit are passionate about making arrests. DWI arrests are one of the few areas in law enforcement where the arresting officers can follow a case from arrest to adjudication.
While all officers have, at some point, received training on detecting and arresting DWI offenders, many have not actually handled this type of arrest, or at least not recently enough to feel comfortable about properly handling the procedures and paperwork.
General patrol officers, upon stopping a suspected impaired driver, may elect to call in a DWI special enforcement unit officer to support or handle the arrest process.
Austin Texas DWI
When they eventually do detect and stop a DWI suspect, enough time may have passed since their academy training that they may wish to have an experienced DWI officer present to offer guidance and assistance. In fact, in August 2002, a new aspect of the cadet training program began in an effort to expose new officers to the actual DWI arrest process.
Under this program, each area commander sends one rookie officer per week to the DWI unit for a three-week assignment. The first week, each cadet rides with a DWI unit officer and observes procedures and reviews their skills in ad-ministering the roadside tests. On the second and third weeks of their temporary assignment, they ride alone but work with the DWI unit taking hand-off arrests and making some of their own DWI arrests.
Therefore the cadets, while learning proper procedures, strengthen the number of officers serving on the DWI unit. The fourth week they report back to their shift at their as-signed area command. By this time, they are familiar with apprehending and processing their own DWI offenders and with taking hand-offs from fellow officers in their area command. This training program should help to maintain, and perhaps further increase, the number of DWI arrests. |
|
|
|
