By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

CALIFORNIA, MD. — To report on twenty years of drunk driving in Southern Maryland is to report on the collective stupidity of a large group of people, most of whom don’t give a rat’s butt about your life or that of your family. If you are ever chosen to serve on a jury where a drunk driver is involved, ignore all pleadings of the defense attorney and should the evidence be present for a conviction, show no mercy upon the defendant. Why? Because the drunk driver shows no mercy for you or anyone else.

DWI is a crime which never need take place. Anyone who drives drunk never has to do it again and in the case of thousands of local residents, over and over and over again.

For the most of the past twenty years there have been no active chapters of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers in this region.

The public has had to rely upon the prevention activities and enforcement actions of law enforcement. Bar and liquor store operators, for the most part, are an ignorant and selfish lot of greedy characters who have few among them that act in either their own best interests or the best interests of the public. There are exceptions of course, and thank God for them as they aggressively ID underage would be buyers of alcohol, cut off those persons who are intoxicated and cooperate with police in enforcement of the law. These merchants have proven its possible to do business and make a living and still contribute to responsible use of alcohol.

Then there are the idiots, with the all-time champion moron being the former owner of a joint called Nokleby’s which featured a mock cemetery on their front step one Halloween complete with tombstones. The fact that they had a tombstone with the name of this newspaper on it was fine, as our efforts to curb drunk driving were in direct conflict with the purposes of the owner of the bar to make as much money as possible and then chase all of their clientele out on the highway at closing time.

The goals of Nokleby’s were as clear as were ours.

But another of their tombstones had the name of M.A.D.D. on it.

To single out those mothers who had lost a child to a drunk driver, as a promotion in front of their bar, which was prominently located in the Wildewood Shopping Center, was not only outrageous, but symbolic of the mindset and attitude of the prevalent fun bunch who ran St. Mary’s County in those days.

The death wish towards M.A.D.D. wasn’t effective as the group really never was able to get enough interest in maintaining a sustainable organization. But death did come to Noklebys and the bar closed, moved to another location and then went out of business, proving that evil sometimes does not prevail.

When this newspaper began, one of the county commissioners was still a hard drinking guy who we regularly featured as being tipsy in our editorial cartoons. Just a few years later, another county commissioner, one that this newspaper supported, had his B.S. reasons for drunk driving and ran into a Washington Post newspaper carrier while on his way home and the commissioner was arrested. Since we had plenty of file photos of this guy, his photo ran on the front page with news of his arrest while his regular column was inside the newspaper. The arrest of this fine young man was sad but at least his family only had to deal with embarrassment and not with making funeral arrangements.

Other notables have been in these pages for DWI including school principals, teachers, ministers, cops, Naval officers, fire chiefs and business owners. Even one of our advertisers was featured for DWI. When one of our political friends asked about keeping one of his relative’s name out of the paper in connection with a DWI arrest, he was warned that the friend’s photo would used on the front page as this was a great discouragement for others to ask the same.

From the janitor to the commissioner, all names given to us by the police in Charles, Calvert and St. Mary’s have been printed. Sometimes the cops have been tardy in releasing the names, as in this week when 3 months of Calvert Sheriff’s records are provided, but sooner or later we get them all.

Ten years ago, the records of drunk driving arrests began appearing on the internet as ST. MARY’S TODAY began digital publication.

Soon, we began to get requests from braindead idiots who think that because they can use political muscle to get their names expunged from court records that their efforts should somehow apply to our DWI Hit Parade.

Well, shamzam, Batman! It just ain’t gonna work like that!

Of course, people who are arrested for DWI don’t want a permanent world wide web record of their DWI to be etched in stone forever, as they have now seen the light, have become good citizens, volunteer with little league, bake cakes for charity and volunteer for their child’s school PTA. Wonderful.

Of course, the real reason for wanting to have a name removed is for jobs, security clearances, insurance or promotions. All worthy endeavors.

But everyone in Southern Maryland is warned each and every week: get arrested for DWI in this part of the United States of America and you will make the Hit Parade.

This is a direct consequence of your decision to driving after drinking.

One may think that a request of a contrite and remorseful person eager to "get on with their life" should be respected.

Those who have lost a family member to a drunk driver have been consulted and they want to know how to remove the name of their loved one from their tombstone so they can "get on with their life".

One name has been removed from our list, that of a man who committed suicide, at the request of his family. That death was researched prior to the removal, as individuals have attempted to use subterfuge in their effort to remove a name.

We have had the photos of thousands of persons in the newspaper while under arrest for DWI. Sometimes the antics are funny.

Other times, such as the most recent DWI killing to take place on local roads, it wasn’t the least bit funny when George Michael "Mikey" Bowes, Jr. crossed the center line and police say, was clearly intoxicated and they are awaiting the final blood tests before charging him with the slaying of Russell Edward Wenzel, of Tall Timbers.

How have the police performed their role in enforcing the laws regarding drunk driving?

All three Southern Maryland Sheriff’s Departments and all three barracks of the Maryland State Police have worked hard at enforcement and prevention and all should be commended. This is true regardless of whether the Sheriff was Democrat or Republican or competent on incompetent. For the past twenty years these agencies have improved their abilities to make DWI arrests, improved their training of officers to spot and make good arrests and participated in efforts such as saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints to identify and removed drunk drivers from the highways.

In any week in which Sheriff’s deputies report ridiculously low numbers of drunk drivers, a phone call has gone to the Sheriff of that county asking him why his people are goofing off. Those calls have been very few and far between.

The Maryland State Police did everything better under Col. David Mitchell, including DWI enforcement, but as the agency has become understaffed and underfunded during the administrations of Ehrlich and O’Malley, new mandates from the silly Maryland General Assembly only serves to take troopers off the highways. All through the years, troopers have worked hard to arrest drunk drivers and continue to rack up life-saving statistics even though they are stretched thin.

It is much harder to quantify the actions of the three States Attorney’s in the region.

But those readers who have computers and some time on their hands are invited to become part of a new pilot project of this newspaper to recruit citizens to research the driving records of those arrested on the Maryland Judiciary case search website and track those who appear to have been dealt with lightly for DWI arrests and or have multiple arrests.

St. Mary’s County has had a tradition of allowing DWI defendants to make a contribution of $1,000 to the State’s Attorney’s favorite charity in order to get their charges dropped. While this policy make put funds in the charities coffers, it does little to serve the interests of the public in removing habitual drunkards from the highways.

Readers who want to become research volunteers in our effort to fight drunk driving can simply email information on those arrested to this newspaper at the email address listed on the front page and at the top of the online edition and we’ll take it from there.

In a desperate effort to find a new way to highlight the problem of drunk driving, a free coffin giveaway by ST. MARY’S TODAY to the first drunk driver to kill HIMSELF was announced at the start of the Christmas drinking and driving season in 2007.

Nationwide attention by national news organizations spread the announcement around the world. Miraculously, there were no alcohol related fatalities for three weeks and on Christmas Eve we declared victory and ended the campaign with no coffins given away.

Three days later a drunk driver killed himself in St. Mary’s County and no coffin was given to him. He was on his own, he missed the deadline, but he surely was dead. Fortunately, he failed to kill anyone else.

This is tough business, listing the names of approximately 60,000 drunk driving arrests.

The national attention to our modest efforts came fast and quick.

The Washington Post sent reporter Eugene L. Meyer here in 1991 to do a story on our work and a lengthy article appeared on the front page. ABC World News Tonight sent anchor Walter Rodgers and a crew down to report from bars and roadways about our DWI reporting and they ran a segment during the Memorial Day weekend that year.

The Post and ABC talked to lots of folks and officials who thought this paper was great and to a few who hated it.

Some of them just don’t like it when we report on drunk drivers and vilify our efforts, usually in a cranky voice which has that sound of too much cigarette smoking as the elbow bends back and forth.

Some have attacked police officers attempting to lock them up for DWI, spit on the cops and curse their mothers. Others have been uncommonly polite and embarrassed.

The worst was Tom Cyrus Jr. who sat on Rt. 5 in Park Hall and whined that no one was tending to his minor scrapes while the Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue personnel and medics struggled in vain to save the life of the baby that was in the car that Cyrus struck. The baby turned ashen gray and died. They flew him anyway, but that baby was dying while that piece of human garbage snarled and complained.

The legislators have been timid in increasing the penalties for drunk driving, though Senator Roy Dyson has been trying.

But the General Assembly can’t be expected to do too much when the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is a DWI defense attorney and the House Majority Leader was arrested for DWI last year. Boozing it up in Annapolis and hitting the road remains a way of life.

When Judge Clarke Raley was on the District Court bench, he began a stiff sentence regime and the attorneys began to appeal all the cases to the Circuit Court, which shocked the Judge, who had a very casual routine and didn’t want to work too hard.

By and large, most of the pleas are worked out between the States Attorney and defense attorney and very few cases go before a judge to determine the fate of the offender.

A first time offender should be given a mandatory 30 days in jail and lose their license for a year without any provision for employment or education. Let ‘em walk. But there is little chance that the legislature will approve a meaningful change in the law.