Drinking to excess has a way of improving drivers’ motor skills and judgment – it alleviates aggression and stops disagreements and fights in their tracks – it stomps out domestic violence and child abuse – fights disease and illness – and pretty much leads to success in all aspects of a person’s life.
Yeah, no, none of that is true. It is in fact the exact opposite. Drinking to excess ruins lives. And the Durango Police Department is getting innovative and proactive with a new video-based campaign called “Over the Top.”
Over the next several months, a new video will post at 7 a.m. every Monday on the department’s Facebook page. Segments will include interviews filmed during the past several months that feature police officers, emergency response teams, victims of alcohol-related crashes, owners of liquor-serving establishments, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other organizations focused on curbing alcohol abuse.
The short videos will educate viewers to different perspectives about overselling and consumption of alcohol, its impact on health and public safety, and ways to imbibe responsibly.
A pre-campaign video, a 54-second taste on DPD’s Facebook page of things to come, shows an officer on patrol getting passed on South Camino del Rio by a car that reaches a speed of 107 mph as it weaves through traffic. The car narrowly misses the back of a semi-truck before finally pulling over to the flashing red and blue lights of the patrol cruiser. What happened after is described in a short write-up accompanying the video.
The driver was drunk with a 4-year-old in the back seat with no seat belt or car seat. Both the driver and the front seat passenger had been in a DUI crash only two months prior. While the driver is taken to the jail, he laughs and says, “I’ll be out in two days.” He was released the next morning. The incident happened two weeks ago.
“This is happening on the same streets that my family uses daily,” Officer Dan Kellermeyer is quoted as saying. “As a father, there’s a tendency to want to keep my children in a bubble and out of harm’s way, but that’s not realistic.”
The first of the campaign’s videos posted Monday. It begins with an appealing-looking cocktail poured over ice cubes that clink against the glass. Recordings of actual DUI arrests blend in the background as the video cuts to a group of suits in an after-work toast before segueing to Durango Police Chief Bob Brammer.
“The Over the Top Initiative was started here in Durango, conceptually in my mind last year after we had several significant incidents that occurred across town,” says Brammer, who explains that almost every night of his 20-year career the police deal with some incident that involves alcohol. “But last year our community was devastated on several different levels by some of these high-impact type crimes that happened out there that were precipitated by alcohol and could have been prevented.”
The video cuts to headlines plucked from The Durango Herald: “Durango DUI arrests increased 14% in 2022” – “Durango man suspected of drunken driving, driving high in rollover crash on Farmington Hill: Passenger flown to Grand Junction hospital with critical injuries” – “Two Durango women killed in head-on crash on U.S. Highway 160 near Bayfield: Driver suspected of being under the influence of drugs, alcohol” – “Repeat drunken driving suspect arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide in Durango.”
“And so based off of that, seeing the need, seeing the hurt, seeing the travesty that was left behind from these incidents, I decided that I was going to go ahead and rally our sergeants ... based on the idea of identifying what the real concerns were culturally within our community,” Brammer continues. “It’s not just one autonomous problem ... it’s a community issue and we needed to band together and come together and this is a way of getting that information out there to hopefully continue to start the process and the conversation and get people thinking about it so we can actually make some behavioral changes.”
The video closes with DPD Officer Dave Cunningham talking about people who become accustomed to drinking and driving and not getting caught so that it becomes a regular behavior.
“It’s just ugliness all around,” he says as the video rolls past a crash scene. “The estimated cost of a DUI is $14,000 to $15,000” what with “lawyer fees, court costs and fines that are levied upon you.”
The Over the Top campaign is a joint effort between DPD and community partners. To view the weekly videos visit: https://www.facebook.com/DurangoPolice/
gjaros@durangoherald.com
