Crime & Safety

Moon Police Receive Six-Figure Grant for DUI Patrols

The grant will help fund the West Hills DUI Task Force.

and the West Hills DUI Task Force have received a six-figure grant to step up efforts to combat drunken driving.

Moon Police Sgt. Doug Ogden said the task force recently was awarded $104,196 in grant money through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Ogden, who is at the helm of the regional, 15-department task force, said he has applied for the grant since 2002. 

Last year, he said, the task force received about $96,000 in funding to enforce laws against drunken driving. 

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A portion of the grant money will be spent on training and equipment, such as breath testers, Ogden said.

"The vast majority of it though will be spent on manpower," he said. "It's all overtime. This is usually after the officers have worked their 40 hours a week." 

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Ogden, who serves as both the project and program director for the task force, said motorists sometimes drive intoxicated more than 80 times before they are charged by police. 

He said the funding would allow for officers in the Moon area to focus specifically on enforcement of impaired driving during patrols.

"Every day and every night [officers] are looking for impaired drivers," he said. "But the truth of it is they can't spend all of their time doing that. They may need to respond to domestic or a fight at a bar or any number of complaints. This allows us to really devote our resources to looking for impaired drivers, which cause as much injury and death as anything else." 

Last week, the township authorized Chairmen Jim Vitale to execute the grant document for the funding. Ogden said that he expects the task force to begin receiving funding in October, at the beginning of the federal fiscal year. 

"This gives us the benefit of taking people who are dangerous and arresting them and also giving the public a sense that if they drink and drive they will be apprehended," Ogden said. "If there's no real fear of apprehension, then you feel you can get away with it." 


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