Journal & Topics Media Group

Extra DUI Enforcement Set Over Thanksgiving Holiday In Village


Rosemont Public Safety vehicle seen in November 2018. (Photo by Rich Day)

The Rosemont Public Safety Department received a grant to increase police enforcement during specific times of the year in which alcohol-involved and unbuckled fatalities are the highest.

The Illinois Dept. of Transportation awarded the 2018-2019 grant to the department on Oct. 9, according to Rosemont Sgt. Joe Balogh. The department applied for the grant that requires police departments to allot extra officers throughout six primary campaigns in the year.

Thanksgiving will be the first campaign the Rosemont force is participating in with this grant, Balogh said. The Thanksgiving campaign runs Nov. 16-26 this year. Between Nov. 17 and Nov. 26, 2017, the village recorded seven DUI arrests, according to Balogh.

Other campaigns include Christmas and New Year’s, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. Departments are financially reimbursed from the state for the additional enforcement hours during the campaigns.

The Rosemont department was previously awarded a mini-grant by IDOT in 2017 for a Memorial Day campaign. During that time, three DUI arrests were made over a total of 40 hours.

“For Thanksgiving, we have 32 hours allotted,” Balogh said. “We’ll break that up into a few different nights and between a few different officers equally.”

Balogh said the department is unsure how many officers will be assigned to the campaign. The department has not established times or locations for the the additional enforcement.

Balogh said additional officers will go out on top of regular patrol for four-hour shifts during the campaign to look for impaired drivers on the weekends before or after Thanksgiving. The extra allotment serves as extra eyes and will not respond to calls, he said.

In Illinois, drivers are considered to be under the influence when their blood alcohol content is .08 or higher, but according to the Illinois Secretary of State drivers can be impaired and convicted even if their BAC is lower than .08.

“Any violation of Illinois vehicle code could be an indicator of impairment,” Balogh said. A driver committing multiple violations or swerving are warning signs of impairment. Not everyone who makes a violation is impaired, Balogh said, but after the initial stop and more on-scene investigation, law enforcement can determine the state of the driver.

Balogh said impaired drivers might smell of alcohol, slur their speech, have bloodshot eyes or stumble. Standardized field sobriety tests allow law enforcement to determine if a driver is under the influence and consists of the horizontal gaze nystagmus, the walk-and-turn and the one-legged stand tests.

In 2017, Rosemont logged a total of 88 DUI arrests. This year, the village has made 118 DUI arrests so far.

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