{"id":2445208,"date":"2019-06-11T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=307720"},"modified":"2019-06-11T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T03:00:00","slug":"award-winning-carbondale-cop-sees-hope-in-dui-arrests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/award-winning-carbondale-cop-sees-hope-in-dui-arrests\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-winning Carbondale cop sees hope in DUI arrests"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the most recent First Friday event in Carbondale, police Sgt. Robb Windham said he saw \u201chordes of people walking down the street,\u201d an indication that locals are taking conscious efforts to avoid drinking and driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thrilled, because that\u2019s the ultimate goal,\u201d Windham said.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Windham became really good at spotting drunken drivers. Carbondale police arrested 99 people for drunken driving that year, and Windham made 70 of those arrests himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. It was nonstop,\u201d Windham said.<\/p>\n

Compared with neighboring towns, Carbondale has been on the upper end for DUI arrests in recent years. Glenwood Springs Police Department reported 100 DUI arrests in 2018, with a population of 10,000, and 181 arrests in 2017.<\/p>\n

With a population of around 4,000, Basalt Police Department made 18 drunken driving arrests in 2017 and 38 in 2016, according to state data.<\/p>\n

Windham, 35, has been with the Carbondale Police Department since 2013. In mid-2017, he was promoted to sergeant but kept up his night shift patrols. By 2018 he was doing more office work, and wasn\u2019t out looking for drunken drivers, but he helped the other officers spot drunken drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell the guys, obviously, if I can go out and be in the right place, and the right time, and get 70, they\u2019re out there if you go out there. You just have to do it the right way,\u201d Windham said.<\/p>\n

But Windham said the department isn\u2019t just trying to rack up arrests. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a numbers game, it\u2019s never been about who can do more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In May, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Department of Transportation recognized Windham for outstanding individual dedication to impaired driving enforcement.<\/p>\n

So far this year, Carbondale police have made 37 DUI arrests. Only 16 of those were Windham\u2019s, but he\u2019s OK with that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never a good thing, personally, to arrest someone for a DUI,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, DUIs are people without criminal records who messed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people just blatantly don\u2019t care, and they\u2019re out there getting hammered and driving. But I\u2019d say the majority of people have just made a mistake, so it\u2019s not the most fun thing to do,\u201d Windham said.<\/p>\n

As the summer events season gets underway, Windham hopes people will be more conscientious about drinking. He also wants drivers to understand that asking a driver to step outside the vehicle and complete roadside sobriety tests aren\u2019t meant to entrap anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this myth out there that just because we ask someone out of the vehicle to do roadside (tests) they will automatically be arrested,\u201d Windham said.<\/p>\n

When an officer approaches the designated driver\u2019s window, for instance, the smell of alcohol from the other passengers can be overwhelming, and it\u2019s difficult to tell if the driver also is emitting the smell. Asking the driver to step out is simply a way of making sure.<\/p>\n

Windham said he doesn\u2019t arrest half of the people who do the roadside maneuvers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m asking someone to do roadsides, it\u2019s really just to make sure that you are OK to drive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the most recent First Friday event in Carbondale, police Sgt. Robb Windham said he saw \u201chordes of people walking down the street,\u201d an indication that locals are taking conscious efforts to avoid drinking and driving. \u201cI was thrilled, because that\u2019s the ultimate goal,\u201d Windham said. In 2017, Windham became really good at spotting drunken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2445208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 15:16:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}