‘Not enough (officers) to catch the ones we don't get': DUI arrests down as deaths rise

Well into his 38^th year as a police officer, most nights Master Police Officer Steven Faett is still on Fairfax County roads looking for drunken drivers. He is not sure how many he has arrested over his career, but the last time he counted he’d locked up 656 of them, and that was a few years ago.

Faett, who lost a cousin to a drunken driver decades ago, knows driving under the influence is not a problem that is going away.

“There are drunk drivers out there, and there’s not enough of us to catch the ones we don’t get,” he told the News4 I-Team on a recent night on patrol.

The I-Team found a significant decrease in DUI arrests from 2010 to 2021 in D.C. and Virginia. The Virginia figures come from a recently released report from the Virginia State Crime Commission, which examined the decreasing arrests in every part of that state.

In the same period, DUI-related fatalities have risen 33% in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Police arrest only one out of every 100 drunken drivers on the road and arrest numbers are falling, IIHS said.

To Chuck Farmer, an IIHS researcher who has spent more than three decades researching the issue, it is a dangerous mix.

"I'm convinced that we've still got a huge problem of drinking and driving,” he said.

For Kristine Villatoro, the pain of losing a loved one to impaired driving is still very raw. Her daughter Anna was killed by an impaired driver in Luray in February 2019.

She still tears up remembering the moment her son called to let her know.

“Anna was in a crash,” her son told her that morning.

“Before I could say, ‘Is she OK?’ he said, ‘She didn’t make it,’” Villatoro said. “All I can remember was hearing somebody scream and scream and scream – not realizing it was me.”

The pain fuels Villatoro’s work with Mothers Against Drunk Driving speaking with drivers, families and often law enforcement officers to remind them of the pain it causes.

The driver who killed Anna had been stopped by police just minutes earlier, Villatoro said. He’d been spotted driving his car on a hiking trail before sunrise. The Luray officer who stopped that driver gave him a ticket for driving without a license but, according to newspaper reports at the time, did not see any signs of intoxication. The officer told that driver to pull over and get someone else to drive, but minutes later, the driver hit Anna head on. Her mother suspects she died instantly.

The I-Team reached out to the Luray police chief about the case but did not get a response.

Looking back, Villatoro cannot help but think if he had been arrested, Anna “would still be alive.”

Everyone the I-Team spoke with believes more DUI enforcement is key.

“It sends the wrong message,” Farmer said.

He says fewer arrests can embolden bad choices.

“It's definitely the wrong message,” he said. “People think there's nobody watching.” 

Farmer and the IIHS call for increased “highly visible” enforcement, saying arrests that people see and hear about multiply the effect and potentially keep drunken drivers off the road.

But the report from Virginia State Crime Commission found widespread decreases in DUI arrests.

The report didn’t point to one reason why arrests were down, but listed several barriers impacting enforcement, including staffing shortages, training for and awareness of drug-impaired driving, availability of roadside instruments for detecting drugs, and difficulty obtaining DUI blood draws.

In Fairfax County, the Crime Commission found DUI arrests are down 56% from 2010 to 2021. While Fairfax County police insists the arrests are now increasing again, they are still below 2010 levels.

Sgt. Stephen Cicinato, who leads the Fairfax County police DWI Enforcement Squad, told the I-Team, “The issue of staffing comes into play, I'm sure, in multiple agencies where you don't have the staffing to be able to, one, have a fulltime unit or enough hours in the day for an officer to be able to be proactive and go find a DUI.”

In Fairfax, Officer Faett is one of four officers on the fulltime DWI Enforcement Squad. It used to have eight officers, but Fairfax is one of the few agencies lucky enough to even have a fulltime unit. The Virginia DMV told the I-Team Fairfax was the only agency to apply for a 2023 grant to help fund DUI units.

Across other Northern Virginia communities, arrests are down, too, from 23% to 49%.

Richmond, Virginia’s capital, has the largest drop out of the state’s largest police departments, according to the report. The report says DUI arrests by Richmond police officers fell 97%. In 2010, the report shows Richmond police made 571 DUI arrests. In 2021, there were just 18.

The I-Team repeatedly asked Richmond police for an explanation. While the department acknowledged the question, it has not provided an answer.

Virginia law enforcement agencies attribute some of the decrease to staffing troubles but also COVID-19, an increase in usage of Uber and Lyft, and some agencies’ proactive efforts.

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office told the I-Team, “DUI arrests have been trending down throughout this period, and LCSO believes the rise of ride share companies like Uber and Lyft most likely play a large role in this ongoing reduction.”

LCSO said arrests were down due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 and have since recovered, but not to 2010 levels, either.

A spokesperson for the Arlington County Police Department reminded the I-Team of their proactive efforts to stop DUI and pointed to a section of the Crime Commission’s report: “The overall decrease in DUI arrests and convictions (Va. Code § 18.2-266), along with other changes in DUI-related trends, cannot be attributed to one particular factor” and they outline some factors they considered starting on page 9. There are many factors that can impact crime and in addition to your reference to COVID and the items listed in the report, the availability of safe rides home through ridesharing services has significantly increased between 2010 and 2021.”

“While we too can’t really say why the arrests have dropped, we’d like to think effectiveness of advocacy and education efforts and campaigns coupled with social change regarding the stigma of drinking and driving likely helped,” a spokesperson for the Prince William County Police Department said.

He added their proactive efforts to stop impaired drivers may be having a larger effect and said, “Of late, COVID may be likely (keeping arrests lower), as could staffing challenges impacting police departments across the country.”

In Washington, D.C., an analysis of arrest data showed a 36% drop in DUI arrests in the same period. Arrest figures from Maryland’s cities and counties were not available.

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Jeff Piper.