KAILUA-KONA — Every week, the Hawaii Police Department announces how many driving under the influence arrests it made the previous week.
KAILUA-KONA — Every week, the Hawaii Police Department announces how many driving under the influence arrests it made the previous week.
Behind those busts are hours of police work.
The actual arrest and interaction with the suspect takes an experienced officer about an hour, said Kona Patrol Officer Bruce Parayno.
But then there’s the paperwork.
“It could take an entire shift,” Parayno said.
And there is no doubt for officers that the problem demands attention.
“Drunken driving kills people. It’s a fact,” said Capt. Randal Ishii, commander of the Kona Police Station in Kailua-Kona.
Officers throughout Kona have been busy. So far this year, they have made 315 arrests, well ahead of the 201 in South Hilo and Puna’s 202.
That’s on pace to match or even surpass the roughly 400 arrests made in Kona the last two years.
In 2012, there were 16 fatalities related to drunken driving on Big Island public roads, according to police records. The total number of fatalities that involved alcohol in 2016 won’t be tabulated until the annual report at the end of the year.
With those small numbers, it’s hard to draw much of a trend, Ishii said, as the number of DUIs seems to be comparable with other years.
But that doesn’t change the goal.
“Even one is way too many,” Ishii said. “That is someone’s daughter, someone’s son, someone’s loved one.”
One of the tools used to help eliminate drunken drivers is administrative driver’s license revocation. This procedure allows the state to take away a license without a conviction. It’s been touted as causing a reduction in drunken driving deaths throughout the country.
But much of the work lands on officers’ shoulders.
Prior to administrative revocations, Ishii said officers regularly would make two arrests a night. That rate is no longer possible with current requirements, he said, which include many steps to fulfill.
One of the major parts is explaining the options and their potential consequences to the suspected impaired driver, Parayno said, which can be complicated based on how intoxicated a person is.
The driver must be advised that refusing to take either a breath or blood test can result in losing their license, and blood tests, which can be required after an accident, require a trip to Kona Community Hospital.
In the case of a blood test, the arresting officer also still has to do the police work, including a four-page form the officer must fill out. After that, the alleged offender normally is released, pending investigation, and the blood is sent to the lab.
Additionally, Hawaii Police Department uses DUI checkpoints, which largely are funded by grants and contingent on that money coming in, Ishii said.
Lately, they’ve been running two a weekend, which could account for the increase in arrests.
Email Graham Milldrum at gmilldrum@westhawaiitoday.com.