Officer calls in drunk driver

Frontiersman.com

PALMER — A Wasilla police officer with an arrestee in the patrol car had to call for backup after spotting a possible drunk driver last week.

Deborah A. Padilla, 56, of Wasilla, was arrested shortly after 4:50 a.m., Sunday, according to a press statement from Alaska State Troopers, after she “committed multiple moving violations” in her Mercedes ML350.

The call reporting Padilla came in as she passed 49th State Street on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“The complainant, a WPD officer who was unable to conduct a traffic stop as he already had a person under arrest in his patrol car, followed the Mercedes until Troopers were able to conduct a traffic stop on the Mercedes and also observed it speeding, crossing the centerline and failing to dim its high beams,” the AST report says.

Padilla was arrested for DUI and jailed at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on $500 bail.