Monday, 21 February 2000
By Thomas Stauffer
The Arizona Daily Star
The Southern Arizona DUI Task Force issued more than 100 citations
for underage drinking in a weekend crackdown at the border, a
task force spokesman said.
``I think it was very successful, the fact that we had no collisions
and no fatalities during those two days,'' said Sgt. Ed Slechta
of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. ``We're trying to
send a strong message to underage people not to drink down there,
and I think we did that.''
Officers from the task force issued 104 citations for underage
liquor violations and made 14 arrests on charges of driving under
the influence.
Many of the underage drinkers arrested for possession of alcohol
were surprised to find out that possessing the alcohol in their
stomachs was all it took to merit a citation, Slechta said.
``It's called dominion control. If it's in their body, that's
possession, and if they're underage, that's illegal,'' he said.
``Even though you consumed it legally in Mexico, as soon as you're
back in the U.S., you're breaking the law.''
Slechta said the deaths of two Rio Rico teens earlier this month
in an alcohol-related incident in Nogales, Sonora, prompted the
members of state law enforcement agencies to address the problem
of underage drinking.
``We need to cut down the carnage on the roadways and make it
safe for everybody out there,'' he said. ``We're cracking down,
and it's a zero-tolerance situation.''
Slechta said 52 of 455 collisions on Interstate 19 between Nogales
and Tucson last year were alcohol-related, with 12 of those resulting
in fatalities.
The task force put 29 officers on Interstate 19 near Nogales each
night, with several officers even stopping in at bars in Nogales
to look for underage drinkers, Slechta said.
Law enforcement agencies contributing officers to the task force
included the Pima County Sheriff's Department, the Santa Cruz
County Sheriff's Office, the Nogales Police Department, the Patagonia
Marshals, the Tucson Police Department and the Arizona Department
of Public Safety.
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