Officers accelerate fight against DUI

Two St. Petersburg police officers, whose nights are taken up running down weaving cars, win commendations from MADD.

By LEANORA MINAI

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- It was midnight when Officer Robbie Arkovich saw the car speed by, its headlights dark. He was ready to follow the driver but noticed a Saturn swerving toward the center lane.

"Now I don't know who to stop," said Arkovich, a St. Petersburg DUI officer. He turned the unmarked Crown Victoria toward the weaving Saturn and pulled the driver over. A candy bar wrapper had distracted the driver.

Arkovich and his partner, Officer Mike Egulf, search the city streets for impaired drivers from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. They were among 126 officers across Florida recognized by Mothers Against Drunk Driving for making more than 100 arrests in 1999. Arkovich jailed 103 people; Egulf, 101.

"That barely scratches the surface as to what's out there," said Arkovich, 33.

[Times photo: Boyzell Hosey] St. Petersburg DUI officer Robbie Arkovich conducts a field sobriety test early Friday morning on a driver suspected of being impaired The driver had been drinking but passed a series of sobriety tests. Arkovich did not arrest the driver; he called a cab instead to take him home.

DUI investigations are time consuming. An arrest takes two hours; paperwork eats another hour. Yet, Arkovich and Egulf managed to exceed 100 arrests even though they started keeping track three months into the year.

"Anything over and above the 100 is just phenomenal," said Judy Alexander, MADD's executive director in Florida.

All told, there were 15,000 arrests for DUI in Florida last year.

On a recent Thursday night, Arkovich climbed behind his unmarked cruiser equipped with a radar gun and windshield-mounted video camera; Egulf took the new van. It has the Intoxilyzer 5000 -- the typewriter-looking machine that reads a driver's breath-alcohol level.

Arkovich has seen it all. One woman blew a .391 -- nearly five times the legal limit.

"And she was driving through people's yards and sidewalks, but she was driving," he said. Someone with a high level can be less dangerous than a risk-taking driver who registers .08 or a little over.

"People see them coming and get out of the way," Arkovich said.

The officers split up on Fourth Street N, cruising up to Gandy Boulevard, then back down. They stay in touch by radio. Along Fourth Street, Arkovich tailed a pack of drivers, looking for patterns of erratic driving from any car.

"What I'm looking for is a little bit of weave," Arkovich said.

During their shift, Arkovich and Egulf stopped five drivers including: a woman weaving because she was unwrapping a candy bar; another driver who swerved into the median because she was talking with a passenger and not paying attention; a young man who acknowledged he had been drinking but was not impaired.

One stop led to an arrest. It came after midnight.

At 12:49 a.m., a citizen flagged down patrol Officer Mark Offutt. A white Toyota Camry was bouncing off curbs. Offutt pulled over the driver off Fourth Street N.

When Arkovich, Egulf and another DUI officer, Arthur Huntington, got to the scene, the driver of the Camry was sitting behind the wheel, looking dazed.

Arkovich, wearing a wireless microphone and transmitter that records conversations, asked St. Petersburg resident Steven Maida to step out. Maida climbed out and stumbled back.

"Mr. Maida, how much have you had to drink tonight?" Arkovich asked.

"I'd say three or four beers," he replied.

Maida said he started drinking bottles of Bud Lite at 7:30 p.m. Arkovich asked what time Maida thought it was.

"I'd have to say it's 9:30 p.m.," he said.

It was 1:15 a.m.

Maida, 40, was cooperative, but Arkovich said he showed signs of impairment. Bloodshot, watery eyes. Slurred speech. He was swaying.

While Huntington held the video camera, Maida was asked to follow a pen with his eyes, walk and turn along a yellow chalk line, stand on one leg, touch his nose and say the alphabet.

He was taken inside the police van for a breath-alcohol test, but the test was not taken immediately.

According to state rules, officers must wait 20 minutes before asking a driver to blow into the tube of the Intoxilyzer 5000. While they waited, Egulf explained the process and made small talk with Maida, a deli manager who moved to Florida from Brooklyn, N.Y., to be with his daughter.

"When you get behind a 3,000-pound vehicle, now you have a weapon," Egulf, 33, told him. "You're not going to be any good to your daughter if you're dead."

Maida's results were baffling. How could he appear and behave so impaired yet blow .057 and .059 -- below the legal limit? The state considers a driver impaired if his blood or breath-alcohol level is .08 or more.

The officers told Maida he was probably impaired by something other than alcohol. They asked whether he took drugs or medication. Maida said no. Instead, he said he drank more beer than he originally confessed -- "over a 12-pack."

Finally, he said: "I took a Valium."

Two hours earlier, Maida said, he popped the sedative for which he did not have a prescription. He said he got an upsetting telephone call.

"I got stupid and now I guess I've got to pay the consequences," Maida said.

At about 2:15 a.m., Arkovich and Egulf pulled behind police headquarters with Maida. They got a urine sample to send to the medical examiner's office for testing.

They booked Maida in the Pinellas County Jail. It was almost 4 a.m. when they were done -- the end of their shifts, and time to go home.

"For every one we get," said Egulf, "there's 10 we don't get."

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