Austin Police Make 160-Plus DWI Arrests During Memorial Day/ROT Rally Periods

AUSTIN, TX — Austin police arrested more than 160 intoxicated drivers in a two-week period that encompassed the Memorial Day period and the mass motorcycle gathering dubbed the Republic of Texas Rally this past weekend.

Police have taken to implementing "no refusal" initiatives each weekend through the end of the year, a departure from past years when they've only done this doing holiday, traffic-laden periods. The term "no refusal" means that police can secure warrants to draw blood from drivers unwilling to provide a simple voluntarily or submit to a breathalyzer.

The latest iteration of "no refusal" netted 166 drunk drivers—a number exponentially greater than previous weekend initiatives. The most recent DWI crackdown was in effect each night between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. from May 26 to June 12. Last year, 107 people were arrested during "no refusal" initiatives for Memorial Day and the ROT Rally, police noted.

"The Austin Police Department is continuously focused on preventing lives from being lost on the streets, highways and waterways of Austin through education and enforcement," police said in a news advisory.

Related story: Republic Of Texas Rally Tally: 14 Motorcycle Crashes, Seven Hospitalized, One Death, 164 DWIs

Police in January announced they would implement "no refusal" periods each weekend until September. Each initiative runs every weekend from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. each Friday and Saturday night through Sunday morning, police said at the time. They kicked off their first such effort on Friday, March 31 through Sunday, April 2.

While some skeptics view the initiatives as efforts to create a police revenue stream, police insist this is not the case: “No Refusal is not about making as many arrests as we can,” Lt. Blake Johnson with APD’s Highway Enforcement Unit, said at the time of the announcement. "It is about keeping unsafe drivers off Austin roadways and keeping the public safe. No Refusal ensures that we have solid blood alcohol content evidence of every arrest and as such enhances our ability to prosecute people who drive drunk and put others in danger.”

The 164 arrests in the last "no refusal" period (albeit a conflated tally that combines totals from Memorial Day and ROT periods together) was an exponentially greater level during the Superbowl version conducted from Feb. 3-6, when 50 DWI arrests were made.

Editor's note: This story was updated to reflect 166 DWI arrests during the referenced period. Patch requested a day-t0-day breakdown, which yielded an extra two arrests upon re-examination from a police spokesperson.

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