Local police arrested five people this past July 4th weekend in separate drinking and driving incidents as authorities beefed up patrols in anticipation of the holiday.

Three of the five were taken into custody in the early morning hours of July 5, nabbed on the tail end of Independence Day celebrations. The other two were arrested the following day.

Neosho police officers brought the three into custody in less than a three-hour window, from about 1 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. Saturday. All of the driving while intoxicated arrests were initiated by traffic stops spread out around town. One was at Neosho Boulevard and Harmony Street, another at Doniphan Drive and Williams Avenue (near Crowder College) and the third occurred at Pineville Road and Hazelwood Drive in the south central area of the city proper. 

The two DWI arrests made Sunday morning and evening were near the corners of Coler Street and Wood Street and South Street and Terrace Place.

According to Neosho Police Chief Dave McCracken, there were seven police officers on the streets at any given time over the weekend, up by three from the usual four patrolmen on beat.

McCracken said his department had received two rounds of state funding to help cover the cost of putting more staff on patrol during the holiday. One grant was specifically for DWI patrols while the other was designated to watch out for hazardous moving violations.

Independence Day is one holiday that local police pay special attention to, McCracken said, in regard to looking for drunk drivers. A total of six DWI arrests were made last July, according to the police department’s year-end report, making this year’s numbers pretty average, albeit the month is just beginning.

“It’s above average for what’s normal, but average for certain parts of the year,” McCracken said.

He said the highest number of DWI arrests usually occur around Thanksgiving and Christmas, as people have family get-togethers where alcohol is served.

According to the annual report, November had the most DWI arrests last year, at 14.
There were nine arrests made in December.

“People are out celebrating and tend to slip up a bit around those times,” McCracken noted. 

A total of 137 DWI arrests were made throughout 2007, up by 15 percent from the year before.