Drunk Busters a bust for alert caller

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The Drunk Busters #DWI hotline is effective in nabbing drunken drivers, police say, but for one caller 15 minutes of telephone runaround ended in frustration rather than an arrest.

Every month approximately 1,800 people call the number leading officers to make contact with about 140 drivers who caught the attention of other motorists. They arrest about 30 people based on the officer's own observation.

One woman says she had an experience she will never forget. On Nov. 30 Robin McCoy spotted what she thought was a drunken driver on Interstate 25 heading north near San Mateo Boulevard in Albuquerque.

"She'd go over to the left and hit the line and jerk back over to try to get into that lane," McCoy told KRQE News 13. "I thought she was going to kill herself or somebody else."

McCoy called Drunk Busters where a dispatcher transferred her call to the Albuquerque 911 dispatch center.

During the three-minute call, McCoy gave that dispatcher information on the suspected drunk and ended the call.

As McCoy drove over Tramway Road and into Sandoval County she called Drunk Busters back to tell them about the white Chevrolet Trailblazer she was following.

The dispatcher transferred her call to the dispatch center in Sandoval County. A recording of the call caught the tension in McCoy's voice as she feared she would witness the worst.

"She's crossing the lane now; she's going to hit somebody," McCoy said. "Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. I hope somebody's coming soon, I really do. Oh, my God."

The dispatcher told McCoy there were deputies up the road waiting to see which way the driver was going to go.

McCoy followed the other driver as she got off I-25 in Bernalillo and headed up State Road 165 toward Placitas.

"Are there deputies close?" McCoy said to the operator. "Where are you guys?"

Frustration now was turning to anger.

"I kept pleading, you could hear it in my voice," McCoy told News 13. "I kept pleading, 'Where are you; where are you?'

"I was almost in tears I was so angry."

And when McCoy saw the woman pull up to her mailbox her condition became obvious. McCoy described the woman as stumbling out of her car, staggering to the mailboxes and then falling back into the driver's seat.

The woman then drove down a private driveway and disappeared from view.

New Mexico State Police Lt. Pat Garrett, who heads up the Drunk Busters hotline, conceded the 15 minutes that McCoy was on the phone with dispatchers is a long time for officers to reach a suspected drunk driver.

"I can understand she is really frustrated," Garrett said. "She called #DWI and expected an officer to respond in the next 3-4 minutes, and although we try, that doesn't always happen."

However there was a Sandoval County deputy sheriff in the Placitas area just minutes away that night. Sheriff John Paul Trujillo said the dispatcher gave his deputy the call 6 1/2 minutes after it came in.

His deputy could have reached the impaired driver if there wasn't a delay, he added.

Rio Rancho Officer John Francis, a spokesman for the Sandoval County dispatch center, disputed that timeline saying that almost as soon as McCoy's call came in an "attempt to locate" notice went out countywide to all deputies.

That night, McCoy hoped deputies would catch up to the suspect, but that didn't happen.

Deputies never made contact with the woman. And even though they had a license plate number, vehicle description and McCoy's recorded statements, no officer witnessed the erratic driving.

Without proof she was drinking and driving, she will not be charged.