Banner Graphic, Volume 13, Number 111, Greencastle, Putnam County, 17 January 1983 — Page 3

Evansville trooper has arrested 113 drunken drivers EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) Drunken drivers in southern Indiana, beware of Indiana State Police Trooper Marty Metzger. The 24-year-old trooper who patrols Vanderburgh County made 113 drunken driving arrests in 1982, more than three times the district's average per trooper. Metzger’s eye for drunken drivers may also help the Evansville state police post lead the state in highest average of drunken driving arrests per trooper. Final tallies are expected this week. "I used to accuse him of sitting outside the taverns to catch so many drunk drivers,” said Vanderburgh County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Donald Humston. “But then I started checking the locations of his arrests and thev were on U S 41 41,41.” Metzger, who joined the force in December 1979,,5aid he has never waited outside a tavern for the drinkers to drive home. That isn’t necessary, he said. “All you have to do is keep your eyes open,” he'said. Metzger credits Trooper Marvin Heilman with his success. “He’s the one who taught me what to look for,” Metzger said. “He has always been one of the top drunken drivergetters.” Metzger said that in his months of training with Heilman, he learned that the drunken driving arrest is the best traffic arrest you can make because “drunk drivers kill people.” That idea has been reinforced for Metzger while investigating numerous traffic fatalities, including one in which four people were killed. Metzger said in the number of drunken drivers he arrests, there are a number who have no business driving. “Some don’t even know where they are,” he said. “One who was stopped near the state police post thought he was at a shopping center in Kentucky.” Metzger said there are a number of signs he looks for before stopping a car. “The main thing is weaving but the drivers usually show me two or three indications before I stop them. If they are running off the road, jerking, drfiting across the roadway or driving 10 to 15 miles under or over the speed limit,” he says. Indiana’s legal limit is .10 percent blood alcohol, but Metzger said the average for the people he stops is .15 percent. Sgt. Joe Reine, assistant commander of the Evansville district, said that the 27 troopers who patrol six southern Indiana counties have averaged 34 drunken driving arrests for 1982. an increase of more than 9 percent over last year. Metzger hasn’t been alone in his arrests of drunken drivers. Troopers Heilman, Tim Gipe, John Piper and Andy Clark each nabbed more than 50 in 1982. The Evansville post was second in the state in 1981 with an average of 24.75 drunken driving arrests per trooper. Reine said. The post at Versailles led with 28. The number of drunken driving arrests made by the troopers in Vanderburgh, Posey, Warrick. Gibson, Pike, and Knox counties jumped from 660 in 1981 to 920 in 1982, a 39 percent increase. Metzger also topped the Evansville district in 1981 with 82 arrests. “I’m assigned to Vanderburgh County and the county sheriff’s office takes care of most of the criminal cases," he said. “I have maybe one or two a month and that frees me to do traffic.” But some of his success is due to the fact that he consistently works two and three hours past his 3 a.m. quitting time. “I enjoy it,” he said, although he doesn’t receive pay for the overtime or the 200 miles he puts on the car every night.

: Station i founder : can't cope : INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A ’ founder and former chief of the ' Indiana Service Station Dealers * Association is selling milk and says economics forced him to Stop fixing cars. Robert L. Cope still will sell gasoline in downtown 4 Indianapolis, but it will be as part of his new Fast Mart convenience store business. Cope is anticipating the sales of milk, bacon, bread and other . grocery items will provide him with a better living than he’s had in recent years. Suppliers have started I delivering groceries to the store, which will operate where he previously operated full service bays. He started planning the change in August. “Expenses were just accelerating,” explains Cope, who’s known as an outspoken representative of independent gasoline retailers and service station owners. “It got to the point that it wasn’t worth the hassle. “I did way more dollar sales the last couple years, but the take-home was less,” he said, adding that his profits on gasoline were 50 percent higher back when the federal government regulated prices and supply. “When the glut came back, it completely destroyed the economics of the business,” Cope said, adding that insurance costs and taxes kept rising with unemployment taxes were nine times higher than the year before because high unemployment had drained the state jobless trust fund.

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Drunken driving topic of dozen bills

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) has what some consider one of the toughest drunken driving laws in the nation, but lawmakers have introduced a smorgasboard of legislation this year to crack down even more. So far, more than a dozen bills have been filed on the subject, and senators have three more days to file additional bills on that or any other topic. House members have more than a week. Gov. Robert D. Orr said in his “State of the State” address last week that he supports “getting tougher on drunk drivers.” Why all the interest? “It’s a direct reponse to all the publicity given to the problem," says Sen. Leslie Duvall, R-Indianapolis, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that has been assigned five of the bills. “The problem isn’t new. The publicity has been immense.” The Judiciary Committee’s courts and criminal code subcommittee heard and last week unanimously approved two of the measures, products of the Governor’s Task Force to Reduce Drunk Driving. Bobby J. Small, who chairs the 25-member task force, thinks two trends are have helped spark interest: more attention focused on victims of all sorts of crime within the last two to

Matching funds for state roads issue before the legislature

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Sen. Elmer MacDonald, R-Fort Wayne, has found a way for the state to raise $37 million to match the extra $126 million in federal funds for roads this year. The only thing standing in the way is the state legislature. A new' federal law providing the money allows the state to defer paying the matching funds in each of the next two years.

Illegal bingo bringing in millions for clubs

CHICAGO (AP) - Playing bingo for money is illegal in northwest Indiana, but has become a multimillion business protected by police, politicians and prosecutors, a published report says. Though bingo is legal in 42 states - including Illinois, which allows charity games run by licensed operators -- the Indiana Constitution specifically bans gambling of any kind. “That includes charity bingo,” said Lake County prosecutor Jack Crawford. “Either something is legal or it’s not. There are no gray areas. And bingo is illegal in Indiana.” But the Chicago Tribune reported in Sunday editions that chartered buses carry gamblers into Indiana from as far

four years, and more national attention focused on drunken drivers. At least 14 bills related to drunken driving have been introduced and assigned to committee. Small doesn’t think that’s a reflection on the current laws, which he says are some of the toughest in the country. “I don’t think they have holes. They’re not uniformly enforced,” he said. Small says he thinks there may have been even more bills introduced if the task force hadn't been formed last year to investigate the current law and legal options. Indiana law already provides up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine for the first drunken driving conviction and a mandatory sentence of at least five days in jail and up to a two-year license suspension for second offenders. Motorists who have previous drunken driving convictions or who injure someone because of drunken driving face a maximum penalty of four years in jail and a SIO,OOO fine. If drunken driving causes death, the motorist can be sentenced to up to eight years in prison and fined SIO,OOO. Current law says first offenders may have their licenses suspended for 60 days to two years or may be placed on probation with a

However, if the state uses that provision, it would have to pay $74 million in 1985 or have its federal funding decreased by that amount, state officials said. MacDonald, chairman of the Senate Roads and Transportation Committee, has introduced a bill that provides an alternative to financing the match. His bill would allow a

away as Wisconsin. And private cars carry thousands of people across the Illinois state line each week to participate in the high-stakes games, the newspaper said At some games, uniformed police direct traffic and stand guard in counting rooms, according to a Tribune reporting team that spent three months examining 14 bingo operations in Lake County, Ind.. just outside the Chicago city limits Prosecutor Crawford said there probably are “100 or more games operating each week" in Lake County, but he has a “basic trust” in the people who run them. He said he has bigger crimes to prosecute than bingo, although Crawford acknowledged he didn’t know the amounts of money involved.

portion of gasoline sales tax receipts to go into the state highway fund MacDonald’s bill “has got some merit, but because of the financial picture it probably will be put on the back burner,” Rep Thomas D. Coleman, who chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee. Another option is to defer the matching funds this year but

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restricted license for one year. The task force recommendations include that habitual traffic offenders have their licenses suspended for 10 years. If an offender drives with a suspended license, he faces up to four years in prison and a SIO,OOO fine and lifetime suspension of a drivers license. The task force also w’ants to mandate a license suspension of at least 15 days for first offenders, if they are placed on probation. Under the proposed bill, alcohol treatment while on probation may be imposed but isn’t mandatory. Other bills introduced so far would : —Require that first offenders be jailed for at least five days and repeat offenders for at least 30 days. —Require a four-day jail term and minimum six-month license suspension for first time drunken drivers and require at least 14 days in jail for repeat offenders. The bill would impose fines of at least SSOO for first offenders and SI,OOO for repeat offenders or those who injure others. —Raise the penalties for driving after a license is suspended for life, with up to eight years in prison and a SIO,OOO fine. —Prevent judges from reducing a felony sentence to a misdemeanor for a third offense, or if

pay them next year, said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Patrick T. Kiely, RAnderson. The reasoning is that mounting deficits have made this year’s revenue picture bleak, and the state may not reach its projected surplus of $57.7 million by June 30, the end of the fiscal year, state officials said.

January 17,1983, The Putnam County Banner-Graphic

one or more previous convictions have resulted in serious bodily harm. —lmpose a $250 minimum fine for driving with a suspended license if the license was suspended because of driving while intoxicated. —Automatically suspend the license of a first offender for one year, suspend the license two years for a second offense, four years for the third offense and for life for four or more. —Require a car to be impounded for six months if a drunken driver has two or more previous convictions. —Allow law enforcement officials to impound a drunk driver's non-rented car if the driver has been convicted of drunken driven within the last two years. —Waive juvenile court jurisdiction over children under age 16 charged with driving while intoxicated. —Require persons convicted of drunken driving to file S3OO to SI,OOO w'ith the court clerk, to be returned after three years if the driver maintains a clean record. Small says the task force discussed whether a first offense should lead to an automatic jail term but concluded it could clog the courts and jails when “a person hasn’t demonstrated whether he’s a serious offender yet.”

In 1984, however, they expect the state to have a $122 million surplus because of tax increases the Legislature passed in December. Coleman says matching funds could be deferred until 1985. However, Sen. Lawrence M. Borst, R-Indianapolis, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said no decision can be made until next month.

when a new state revenue forecast is released. Any decision “will have to be made within the income structure we have,” Borst said. “1 keep trying to sell the position that the money is just not there.” Borst said another option is merely to refuse the federal highway money.

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