Cops stop more than 1,400 at checkpoints, will work OT Sunday

Call it the Last Lost Weekend.

After a summer’s worth of party-fueled holidays, Colorado Springs police were out in force patrolling Labor Day-related revelries, looking to nab drunken drivers during the last big three-day holiday of the season.

They brought in a fair haul: Nineteen people suspected of drunken driving were arrested Friday night and early Saturday at DUI checkpoints in Colorado Springs. Two others were arrested on marijuana offenses, and one person was arrested on a warrant, police said.

At Gin Mill Liquors on North Circle Drive, the cat was out of the bag about the traffic stops, even though customers weren’t streaming in quite as steadily as this time last year.

“One guy said, ‘Tell your customers, if they’re going to Powers, there’s a checkpoint there,’” said owner Davey Chung. “I support those checkpoints. People shouldn’t drink and drive.”

The police operation ran from 9 p.m. Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday, first in the southbound lanes of Powers Boulevard at Victor Place. Midway through the evening it was moved to the eastbound lanes of Pikes Peak Avenue at Institute Street.

In all, 1,444 motorists were stopped during the checkpoints run by Colorado Springs police, the Colorado State Patrol and the Pikes Peak Community College Police Department.

Police deployed additional officers to work “saturation patrols” on Saturday night, targeting suspicious drivers near downtown and other high-traffic areas.

The department has run a summer-long campaign against drunken drivers, using state grant money to pay for the checkpoints.

There were a dozen sobriety checkpoints and increased patrols scheduled elsewhere in the state this weekend.
Colorado officers have made 983 DUI arrests since Aug. 21 in an ongoing national enforcement effort that ends Tuesday.

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Staff writer Sue McMillin contributed to this report.