Houston duo tops DUI arrest rankings

HOUSTON — The two-man Houston Police Department tied with Bethel last year in the rankings of per-officer DUI arrests, according to statistics compiled by the Alaska Highway Safety Office. Palmer Police Department ranks next highest.

“I’m humbled,” Houston Police Captain John Rhyshek said of the mark.

The way the state compiles its DUI arrest statistics weighs in Houston’s favor, Rhyshek said. The tiny department has just two officers — Rhyshek and Jason Holmgren.

The statistic is a per-officer arrest tally calculated by dividing the total number of arrests by the total number of uniformed officers, Highway Safety Office Administrator Cindy Cashen said.

Rhyshek said that in other departments, uniformed officers like investigators and chiefs of police who don’t regularly work traffic patrol can dilute the statistics.

“Don’t get me wrong, [Alaska State Troopers] will have 22 DUI arrests in one weekend, but they also have 400 employees,” Rhyshek said.

So, Houston’s 22 DUI arrests for 2007 were divided by two to come up with an average of 11 arrests per officer, Rhyshek said.

Another factor working in Houston’s favor is that things just don’t move as fast in Houston as they do for some other departments, Rhyshek said.

“We’re on the road a lot because [of] our call volume, we’re not stacked up with calls like [troopers are],” Rhyshek said. “We actually have time to be proactive, conduct traffic stops and patrol our communities.”

Cashen said Houston, Palmer and Bethel also didn’t compete against the big dogs — traffic enforcement teams in Anchorage and the troopers’ DUI Enforcement Teams, Cashen said. One of those teams is stationed in the Valley. Those teams focus solely on traffic stops and are lumped into a separate category.

“Some of those numbers are absolutely amazing,” Cashen said. Her office is still firming up those numbers and they aren’t ready for release.

Cashen said that as far as local departments go, Houston and Bethel were No. 1, followed closely by Palmer. Fairbanks and Homer police rounded out the top five.

Whatever the factors going toward Houston’s ranking, Cashen said her office was thrilled to see Houston take first place.

“They weren’t even on the top 10 last year, so we were really delighted,’ Cashen said.

Cashen said that all five departments at the top of the list will receive one trip each to a national lifesavers conference in Portland April 13-16. The conference, she said, is a chance to offer training to officers in departments often short on training funding.

At last week’s Houston City Council meeting, Rhyshek gave the council news of the rankings.

Of the conference, he said, “I’ve talked it over with Jason and since I made 17 of the 22 DUI arrests he thinks it should be me that goes.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.