Local DUI patrols arrest two after Super Bowl

Officers on extra patrols to find impaired drivers arrested only two people for driving while intoxicated the night of the Super Bowl, according to the Vancouver Police Department.

Officers out on the road made 49 contacts, gave 34 warnings, cut 15 tickets and arrested two people for driving while intoxicated. Seven others were arrested for other reasons, the department said.

Washington State Patrol troopers and officers with the Vancouver, Battle Ground and Washougal police departments participated in the patrols.

Last year, officers made about 190 contacts and made four impaired driving arrests, Vancouver police Sgt. Therese Kubala said, but that was with a few more officers participating in the extra patrols, and that day wasn’t as rainy as Sunday.

Early last year, the department won a $150,000 state grant for combating driving under the influence, and the money has gone to multiple other extra patrols, and an ad campaign that put anti-DUI signs on the side of C-Tran buses.

The grant money is part of the state’s Target Zero initiative, a project to eliminate fatal traffic crashes by 2030. Four officers clocked an extra 31 hours Sunday through the grant, the department said.