Busted

LYNNWOOD — Drivers under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs should think twice before they drive on the streets of Lynnwood.

According to the Washington State court statistical tables, Lynnwood ranked third out of all the state’s cities in DUI enforcement, only behind the two much larger cities of Seattle and Spokane.

This ranking is largely due to the efforts of Lynnwood patrol Officer Mark Brinkman, said Lynnwood Police Cmder. Bryan Stanifer. Brinkman is one of the two drug recognition experts Lynnwood has, one of only a couple DRE’s in all of the county.

Snohomish County is above the state’s average for alcohol related fatalities, said Tracy McMillan, Snohomish County DUI task force coordinator.

“We have a huge problem in Snohomish County— there is an impaired driver out on the road here 24 hours a day— but it takes someone like Mark on the roads to spot them and to get them off the road before they kill somebody,” McMillan said. “I know that is benefiting Lynnwood.”

McMillan said during one eight hour DUI emphasis shift the county performs monthly, Brinkman removed three impaired drivers from the roads and made numerous other contacts.

“That’s really good— incredible! In order to do it all correctly- there’s so much paperwork involved as well,” she said. “I think he’s special—he truly believes in saving lives and traffic comes naturally to him.”

Lynnwood’s Police Chief Steve Jensen said the department has recognized the seriousness of driving under the influence and that is why the department has two DRE’s and are planning to have another trained by this summer.

“Officers have been trained to detect driver’s who are intoxicated and are aware of the damage the driver’s have in a community,” Jensen said.

Out of the 529 DUI arrests from January to November 2003 in Lynnwood, 193 of them were made by Brinkman alone. This isn’t even counting the 12 DUI arrests he made outside of the city during that time. Because there are so few DRE’s in the county, Brinkman gets called out of the city limits to lend a hand on other suspicious traffic stops.

Brinkman said knowing the signs of DUI is something he has always had a “knack” for and he finds them in many different areas of the city.

“Knowing the signs of DUI, then after the (traffic) stop being able to detect those indicators other officers don’t see,” Brinkman said.

Brinkman said most of the DUI’s he runs across aren’t falling down drunk— “there are smaller signs,” he said.

“You have to conduct the tests properly and then interpret them,” he said.

The extensive training DRE’s receive through the Washington State Patrol is also very helpful in getting the most out of a suspicious driver.

The training includes two weeks of classroom testing and then two to three weeks of evaluations in the field. To pass the class, students need to have a 75 percent accuracy rate, Brinkman said.

This training includes deciphering if the person has been using drugs other than alcohol as well.

Brinkman said with his tests he can tell what category of drugs a person may be on.

He tests things such as the driver’s pulse rates, pupil sizes and reactions along with blood pressure and leg tremors among other things.

After the tests, he said, “about 75 percent of the people will then tell me what they are actually on.”

Most often the person is on alcohol and/or marijuana or methamphetamine, he said.

Brinkman said DUI’s lessened slightly when the limit changed to .08 blood alcohol content (BAC).

“But to some degree it has increased again,” Brinkman said. So often a driver will tell him they only had “one beer,” he said, but come to find out it was a microbrew beer which has sometimes more than twice the amount of alcohol than a nationally distributed brand.

In the day time Brinkman said officers tend to find more people who are driving under the influence of prescription drugs and he said he rarely has had to pull over someone who is actually having a diabetic seizure or some other reaction to an illness.