Days after deadly DUI crash, Montgomery County Police announce end of alcohol unit

Montgomery County Police said Monday that they are disbanding a unit focused on keeping drunk drivers off the roads because of a shortfall of about 200 patrol officers. But they say that the change won’t significantly impact road safety.

Some advocates for safer roads said the announcement was mistimed, coming on the heels of an incident Saturday in which an allegedly intoxicated driver crashed into a car carrying a family in Bethesda. A mother and her 23-year-old daughter died in the crash, which left an eight-year-old in critical condition.

The press conference to explain the shift in strategy also came a day after police announced the arrest of a Rockville man who was allegedly intoxicated when he crashed a BMW going three times the speed limit, killing two of his passengers.

“The messaging was horrible,” said John Seng, founder of the nonprofit Maryland Coalition for Roadway Safety, of the announced change. “There is an 8-year-old fighting for her life in the hospital from the crash on Saturday.”

“It’s like tone deaf or blind to the sentiment in the county,” he said.

Assistant Chief David McBain, chief of the Special Operations Bureau, acknowledged the unfortunate timing of the announcement during Tuesday’s videoconference.

“Could that collision have occurred at a worse time for me?” he said, referring to the Bethesda incident.

But he said the department has to deal with its staffing shortfall and assign its officers as effectively as possible, and that means disbanding the decades-old alcohol unit, which worked from 5 p.m. until 3 a.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.

Patrol officers, McBain said, have made many more DUI-related arrests than the unit, and the county’s six police districts all need additional patrol officers.

“We can’t continue to take people and officers out of the patrol division and put [them] into specialized units,” he said.

From Aug. 5-25, patrol officers made 42 DUI arrests, while the alcohol unit made four in that same period. McBain said that from Jan. 1 until Tuesday morning, patrol officers had made 342 DUI arrests compared with 95 DUI arrests for the alcohol unit.

The five police officers in the Alcohol Initiatives Unit — three officers, one corporal and one sergeant — will begin new assignments this week and next week. One will work in a unit focused on de-escalating mental health crises and another as a community engagement officer at a county public school. Three will be assigned to patrol units.

McBain said patrol officers will still conduct DUI checkpoints and other operations to find impaired drivers during holidays and the summer.

Brigid Howe, a member of Montgomery County Families for Safe Streets, said in a statement that she fears “the decision to disband this unit will result in more impaired driving, causing more fatal and severe injury crashes.”

And while Seng said he’s unsure if the dissolution of the unit will result in more serious crashes or deaths on the road, he said the change sends the wrong message to “bad actors” who only care about “drinking and not getting caught.”