Making city safer, one DUI arrest at a time

Joe Hughes. The San Diego Union – Tribune. San Diego, Calif.: Dec 26, 2003. pg. B.2

Drinking and driving don’t mix — especially on Officer Tom Broxtermann’s beat.

In his 18 years with the San Diego Police Department, Broxtermann has arrested more than 2,400 suspected drunken drivers, by far the most of any officer on the force, officials say.

A majority of those arrests have come on Beat 123, which includes Mission Beach and Pacific Beach, sites of numerous bars and complaints of public drunks.

“There are so many drivers out there who have been drinking that making arrests is like shooting fish in a barrel,” Broxtermann said.

Business is especially brisk during the holidays, he said as he prepared for a recent stint on the graveyard shift. Studies show three out of five motorists on the road after midnight have consumed alcohol.

Known as “Dr. Broxtermann” by fellow officers, he holds a doctorate in psychology and teaches at National University. He also once taught elementary school.

Broxtermann, 47, has been concentrating on drunken drivers almost since he became a cop.

“So many people were losing their lives to drinking drivers that I thought keeping just one driver off the street might make a difference and save a life,” Broxtermann said.

But his mission became more intense after a fellow officer and friend, Donna Mauzy, was killed by an inebriated motorist while Mauzy was driving to work three years ago.

“My goal is to keep people who even have had one drink away from the wheel,” Broxtermann said. “People who have been drinking don’t know when they are physically impaired. Those I stop always seem to say they only had a couple.”

After years of decline, alcohol-related traffic deaths have been increasing since 1999 and reached 17,419 in 2002, according to federal statistics. In California in 2002, 1,612 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes.

State and federal officials conducting a drunken driving crackdown over the holidays praised Broxtermann’s efforts.

The message he and other police and highway patrol officers are sending is clear, said David Manning, regional administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “You drink, you drive and you lose.”

Officers with other agencies, when told of Broxtermann’s arrest totals, said they were impressed.

How Broxtermann makes so many collars is no secret. The weaving car is, of course, an obvious sign of an impaired motorist.

He also strives to stop as many motorists for traffic violations as possible — knowing that the chances the driver has been drinking are often good.

He often looks for the obscure vehicle code violations — maybe the cracked tail light, in addition to keeping an eye out for those failing to stop when exiting a parking lot or blowing past a stop sign.

A strip of Mission Boulevard can be especially worthwhile. There are a series of stop signs that drunken drivers routinely fail to see in time.

But some of Broxtermann’s arrests often start just with a simple glance at the driver, side by side at a stop light.

“You often can see the look on their face if they have been drinking,” he said. “From there, you wait for them to make a driving infraction and stop them.

“When they roll down the window, you know by the smell.”

Joe Hughes: (619) 542-4591; joe.hughes@uniontrib.com