Juneau police say more people were arrested this Memorial Day weekend than last year.
Four people were for driving while intoxicated, which is up from just one DWI arrest last Memorial Day weekend, according to Juneau Police Department statistics. In total, JPD made 14 arrests from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Tuesday, up from 10 arrests during the same time span in 2017.
High school graduation was the same weekend, and JPD had increased patrol on the roads, in addition to having a JPD Mobile Command Post in the area of Eagle Beach, according to a JPD release last week.
Juneau Crime Line — a nonprofit assisting police departments with investigations — offered a doubled reward for information leading to a drunken driving arrest during the weekend. According to JPD numbers, there were 10 calls reporting the suspicion of a drunk driver, but no arrests were made from those calls.
The 2017 Memorial Day weekend was a relatively tame one compared to recent years, according to JPD statistics. In the six-year span from 2013-2018, JPD responds to an average of 391 incidents (initiated either by callers or by officers seeing something and investigating) per Memorial Day weekend. In 2017, officers responded to 354 incidents during the holiday weekend. That number was back up to 391 in 2018.
Memorial Day weekend 2017 was also a low year for arrests, as 10 arrests is the fewest of any Memorial Day weekend since at least 2013. The 14 arrests this year were more on par with the number of arrests on the holiday weekend in 2013-2016 (14, 14, 13 and 15, respectively).
All four DWI arrests this weekend occurred between midnight and 7 a.m., with one Saturday, one Sunday and two Monday, according to police bulletins.
How did this year stack up?
391 – Average number of incidents on Memorial Day weekend since 2013
393 – Number of incidents this Memorial Day weekend
13 – Average number of arrests on Memorial Day weekend since 2013
14 – Number of arrests this Memorial Day weekend
3 – Average number of DWI arrests on Memorial Day weekend since 2013
4 – Number of DWI arrests this Memorial Day weekend
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
