Stop DWI New York honored 24 Rockland County law enforcement officers on Wednesday for their work in 2012 in arresting people driving while intoxicated.
The agency honored officers who had 10 or more DWI arrests in 2012 at La Terrazza in New City.
“It’s probably the most important area that you’re dealing with today,” said Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe.
There were a total of 876 people arrested in Rockland last year for driving while intoxicated. Rockland County Sheriff Lou Falco said he thinks one reason the county was able to arrest that many people is the way all the departments and officers work together.
“There’s a lot of counties that are not functioning in the way that Rockland County is, where everybody works together,” he said. “But in Rockland County, it works here for us that we all work together on law enforcement, that we talk, we cooperate and we communicate.”
Zugibe also thanked the officers for their work in keeping the streets safe from intoxicated drivers, but said everyone needs to do a better job with finding drivers under the influence of drugs. He said that’s more difficult because it might be harder to spot, and there’s no set number, like a .08 blood alcohol level.
“The area that we’re dropping the ball on — and it’s not just here it’s across the country — is the area of driving while impaired by drugs,” he said. “The latest estimates are that there’s five times as many people driving under the influence of drugs than are driving under the influence of alcohol.”
The event was hosted by Leslie Chernin, coordinator of Stop DWI in Rockland, and Dennis Procter, of Stop DWI and the Ramapo Police Department.
Of the local police departments, Ramapo had the most honorees, with five officers honored on Wednesday. Spring Valley had three officers honored, while Clarkstown had two and Orangetown had one. The Sheriff’s department had three honorees, the New York State Police Troop F had nine honorees and the New York State Park Police had one.
The top honoree was Ramapo Police Officer Robert Collins, who had 30 DWI arrests. The second place finisher for the municipal departments was Clarkstown Police Officer Raymond Laschet, who had 28 arrests.
2012 Stop DWI Honorees:
Town of Clarkstown:
Town of Ramapo:
Village of Spring Valley:
Town of Orangetown:
Sheriff’s Patrol:
New York State Police Troop F:
New York State Park Police:
Top Cop - Municipal:
2nd Place - Municipal:
Top Sheriff:
2nd Place - Sheriff:
Top Trooper:
2nd Trooper:
Sign up for free local newsletters and alerts for the
Pearl River, NY Patch
Patch.com is the nationwide leader in hyperlocal news.
Visit Patch.com to find your town today.