[Music] hello and welcome to this our second episode of the new and improved behind the badge I'm your host Sergeant Javier Salasar there are hundreds of miles of streets roads and highways through the city of San Antonio one of the main jobs of the sapd is to Patrol Those roadways and keep them safe for everyone on this episode of behind the badge we'll focus on two initiatives aimed at saving lives through public education and enforcement our first segment deals with DWI enforcement we'll tell you about the efforts of our DWI unit whose main task is to detect and safely remove drunk drivers from our roadways and how this dedicated group of officers is gearing up for one of the busiest times of the year the holidays now holiday enforcement starts sooner than most people might think and you may be surprised at some of the information you'll hear in our show we'll also hear about some Innovative and non-traditional approaches the sapd takes to DWI enforcement and education later in our show officer Roger Zuniga will bring us some information about another highway safety initiative called tact I don't want to give away too much but tact stands for ticketing aggressive cars and trucks and urges drivers to use caution around 18 wheelers and other commercial Motor Vehicles it's going to be an informative show so join us right after this short break hi I'm Danny Green of the San Antonio Spurs and I'm here with Chief mcmanis to talk to you about graffiti it's not art when you're vandalizing someone else's property it's just plain disrespectful most importantly it's a crime graffiti can get you big F and even prison time and it costs American taxpayers over 8 billion a year don't be part of the problem be part of the solution devote your time to keeping San Antonio clean and beautiful team up with us to wipe out graffiti team up welcome back to behind the badge as I mentioned before the break the focus of our first segment today is Sap's efforts in combating DWI and our Partnerships with other stakeholders who help us with this endeavor joining us now are Captain Tracy powers of the DWI unit and Sandra lezma from Mothers Against Drunk Driving or mad welcome to the show both of you guys thanks for coming on uh captain and and Sandra uh just wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about uh but about the fact that we're gearing up uh for for the holiday uh DWI enforcement Captain can you tell us about that well every time this time of the year Halloween's around the corner nationally Halloween is a pretty uh a pretty large holiday for uh underage drinking uh DWI um in San Antonio we quite haven't seen it as bad as nationally has but like everything else we're trying to get ahead of the curve and be ready for it so we're gearing up by putting extra officers out uh thankfully to teot and their and their uh step grants we're able to put out an additional 15 officers a night during during the holidays so we'll probably have additional 7,500 officers out there over a 5 day time period along with our normal DWI officers okay so that that's one that actually caught me bust surprised the first time I heard it cuz Halloween's not a holiday that we we typically associate with with DWI enforcement and fatalities what do you attribute that to well when we were kids and I date myself back into the 60s and 70s Halloween was kids going uh door too and as I got older Halloween waned I mean no one was doing Halloween a few years ago even my kids were in high school but what we've seen is an uptick where Halloween's become an adult holiday now and people are grabbing hold of it for costume party ities having events at bars and having private parties come dressed up and uh it's becoming more of a drinking let's go on and have fun and party and what we have to really worry about is when the H when Halloween falls on uh if it falls on a Wednesday it's not so bad it falls on a Thursday it's starting to get worse if it falls on a Friday or Saturday we have a lot of problems so we're trying to make sure that when we hit it on a weekend San Antonio is prepared so we're getting plenty of officers out there and we've had step comeing and help us out by putting additional officers out there and also all the substations are helping us out and like I said we haven't had the problem here in San Antonio I don't want to have the problem so we're trying to gear up and be prepared for it an ounce of prevention yes sir okay good good well I know that a big thing a big part of what we do is education uh obviously DWI is not a problem that you can arrest away uh to use a phrase that the chief mcmanis uses quite prominently um absent the fact that we can arrest this problem away uh obious ly education is a is a big factor in it what are we doing to that end to the to education and Sandra if you can tell us a little bit about what mad's role in education is okay our role is you know going out into the community into schools speaking to you know the public let them know that you know about prevention awareness if you're going to be out there drinking to designate a driver we work alongside with scpd we do have detective Johnson that comes with us and does a lot of presentations just to you know to get the word out there about prevention awareness education so everybody when so we can keep our community safe for everyone good good well that's that's definitely admirable and we do appreciate mad's efforts uh in in helping us out being a stakeholder also I guess we can talk about uh something else that that Matt is a member of is is team DWI Captain can you tell us a little bit about that well long before I became the commander of the DWI unit Chief McMan has started a concept called tdwi and what tdwi is it's a collection of different people agencies uh who have an interest in impair driving on our roadways I don't want to say intoxication CU there are other things besides alcohol involved and it started off about four years ago and it's really starting to pick up steam now as it's finally growing in maturity we have different uh people come in we have uh uh Mothers Against Drunk Driving rui the district attorneys are participant we have Cox Communication Yellow Cabs uh involved and I reached out about 6 months ago and invited the bars that we were having in San Antonio that were having some of the bigger problems that we we we were seeing with DWI and we had a terrific response and now we have several of the top bars in San Antonio coming in and they're bringing in other agencies other people in to see what we're doing and Twi is basically we all get together uh about every other month talk about what's happened in the last month or two talk about some of the problems we're seeing and asking for does anybody have any ideas what can we do and we're always looking for for a better ideal I don't have all the the answers and some of the bars have come forward and said why can't why can't we put taxi stands at our bars we're addressing that uh Yellow Cab who is one of our participants has stepped in and we want other cab companies to join us too so our membership is not just for a select group of Law Enforcement Officers it's for everybody now we have the conable three Precinct 3 is involved Bear County Sheriff's Department is actively participating with us and now because call Twi uh we are now orchestrating all of our projects together around major holidays so that we're not uh hitting the same spot but we're working in conjunction with each other we try to make it a uh make it better that's all the best way I can put it is we're making it better and with Twi now we're able to use some of our data resources we're data driven on some of our information we're presenting it showing where our hotspots are for DWI activity where our hotpots are for uh bar activity and we're putting it all together and we're sharing it with the county with the Constable's office any other department that wants to become involved with us and attacking those areas to try to stop the ddvi before they happen Okay on the side note we're educating okay because at Twi and thankfully the Tex we've uh reached out and got a Tahoe a newer model Tahoe is being wrapped uh to be used for educational purposes at any public event uh that's approved and goes through our safe office uh at the at the central safe office and we're going to be able to take a a Tahoe out that's WRA talking about the dangers of DBI and we'll be pulling behind us on a uh flatbed pickup on a flatbed excuse me on a flatbed we'll be be pulling a car that was involved in a 2010 fatality that the family has graciously allowed us to use their vehicle that they lost their loved one in to help help teach people the dangers of drunk driving and impaired driving sure I mean it it's a to anybody that's seen that that display and I've seen that that vehicle that you're talking about it it really hits home it's it's a poignant reminder of of the dangers of of drunk driving because it affects us all uh you know people say I I've heard people say well you know I don't I don't need to worry about DWI I don't I don't drink and drive but you can attest to the fact that it does affect and has the potential to affect just about everybody in San telling you correct well it it affects everybody it can happen to anybody and the police officers are usually first on the to a fatality or a major accident it affects us I've personally been on site to at least 10 fatality accidents involving alcohol over the last few years and I emotionally carry it with me every day thinking of what happened with those the loss of families and loved ones and when you see what the families have to go through because there it's a wasted life sure basically and it it hurts the family the person that was involved I mean their family's losing a loved one probably to be incarcerated for a few years because what they've done and if we can get one person to stop and think about what they're doing at a party because they've seen either the uh the wrecked vehicle our Tahoe been to TWI been to a mad walk anything that we can do to prevent that one person from going out on the streets are taking the right action calling a c or having a friend drive them we've been successful because I look it this way every person that we pull off the street for DWI in an arrest is a life or two lives saved sure and it's hard to wrap yourself around that but it's uh they're they're driving a 3,000 pound bomb when they're driving it drunk sure and we just want to pull them off the street and we'll use education we'll use arrest and we'll use the DD Court that's coming up to help us prevent future problems well that's great and you know back back to Mad um we're working together on a project uh my office is and and Captain your your office is working on this as well and I guess the public can can look forward to seeing in the near future some a PSA that we're going to be putting out uh with mad y'all are devoting some of your your interns to help us in the production of this PSA and the interesting part of this is we're actually going to be using some sapd officers that are that are in the PSA that are appearing in it that have been personally affected officer thoron Michael thoron being one of them that that uh his story is uh is one that I I I like hearing it it's it's a it's a success story um Michael thoron was was struck by a DWI driver lost the leg and actually fought his way through rehab and getting back in he's actually back in uniform fighting DWI he works for me and he's doing a fantastic job good deal good deal well and I know that that Matt is also uh devoting some some of the interns that that I've in talking I actually met the people that are going to be in it with us and and some of them have actually been touched firsthand by by DWI as many people that mad have right we do have interns that have been affected by a drunk driver so when there they coming to our office they see not just from the outside but from the inside too so we all work together with you all so we can do those right alongs just so they can get get that closer you know look at what it is to be out there when these people are out there you know to make sure that once again you know keeping our community safe you've got an event that you wanted to talk about today uh that that Matt is hosting can you tell us about it we're going to be having our walk like matad event coming up October 19th um our website is walk like.org anybody wants to sign up their team you know to walk in in memory of their loved one they can just go on to the website and sign up and it's going to be at the AT&T Center so everybody's welcome to come and join us it sounds like it's going to be a great event and and we certainly wish you the best uh we will actually have have information on it as well we we'll put a link on our Facebook page uh that's facebook.com sanantonio PD so it's our pleasure to assist you guys for all that you guys do for us it's it's believe me and we're going to have a pet zone so bring your animals you know your dogs your your loved ones your little ones bring them with you it's a pet friendly event that's that's perfect that's great for San Antonio uh Captain I just let you know that San Antonio Police Department's DBI unit has two teams okay that participate in this event team night watch and team Stephanie Brown in honor of Officer Stephanie Brown that lost her life to a drunk driver correct a year ago plus so we'll be there with our dogs too okay and I just want to remind everybody that uh the DBI unit Mothers Against Drunk Driving we can't do it without you we need the Public's help in in curbing the DWI curbing the fatality accidents and it's you it's on you to help us we're just one facet and like anything else we can't work by ourselves so San Antonio Step Up help us out let's curb these DWIs and help out uh we got Fiesta coming in the future so we got to get prepared and we will and we'll be there yes sir well you know I just can't say enough good things about everything that team DWI does our DWI unit uh and and of course our partners in in all these Endeavors uh you mad uh text Dot some of our other our other stake fellow stakeholders in team DWI can't say enough good things about them I I do thank uh you thank both of you for both of your your outfits for uh all of your hard work and thank you so much for being here with us today we really appreciate it uh we look forward to having you both back on at some point in the future thank you it's obvious the sapd DWI unit takes their job seriously and so do our partners in team DWI who help us educate the public and save lives we're going to take another short break and then officer Roger Zuniga and another special guest will be talking to us about tacted ticketing aggressive cars and trucks it's another initiative that the sapd uses that's aimed at saving lives stick around scenes like this are alarming but preventable I'm San Antonio Police Chief William mcmanis and I'm here to remind you that it's possible for cars and bicycles to coexist but it's vital to do so safely according to the San Antonio safe passage ordinance vehicles must provide vulnerable Road users like bicycles with a safe buffer zone of 3 to 6 feet when passing bicycle Riders should know that all rules of the road apply to them just as they do cars all traffic signals and signs apply to bicycles let's work together share the road and look out for each other San Antonio it's the right thing to do it's the smart thing to do it's also the law for [Music] welcome back to behind the badge I'm officer Roger Zuniga today I'm talking to officer Wayne alup with the sapd Traffic Division he assists and overseas a attack program and is here to tell us a bit about it officer alop welcome to the show thanks I appreciate it tell us a bit about tact and what it stands for and what it is uh tact basically is an acronym for ticketing aggressive cars and trucks and uh just kind of a brief history on it um in 2004 federal government Congress kind of got with the with Nitsa national highway traffic safety administration the Federal Motor Carrier safety administration and uh basically tasked them to come up with an idea to educate uh passenger car drivers on how they react and and drive around big trucks or 18-wheelers um so they came up with a Tac project is what um okay um so can you talk about what are the missions and the goals of tech the the mission or the the goal the is to reduce accidents and uh involving 18 wheelers fatalities injury and non- injuries all accidents in within the city of San Antonio okay um what exactly do you look for during tact enforcement what are you out there looking for as far as uh issues with drivers 18-wheelers TCT is kind of a there's a couple of different uh tiers to to the TAC project the first is the enforcement and we have two sub tiers to that one we have Highway enforcement which is made up of highway traffic officers they'll go out and look for any type of aggressive driving uh violations for example tailgating uh cutting off trucks uh failure to Signal speeding um failure to uh to give rideway uh things along that nature and of course anything uh multiple violations consisting of of an aggressive nature and the officers will take the necessary action U to their discretion uh the second sub tier to that involves uh our truck Enforcement Officers or truck enforcement unit and they will pull over 18 wheelers or commercial vehicles of any sort and do a a typical what we refer to as a DOT inspection they look for any type of equipment violations driver violations or anything that may throw up a a red flag okay now here people complaining that uh well there's truckers that are aggressive as well do these programs apply to truckers as well enforcement against truckers or on truckers as well yes the program is designed to not just Target Passenger cars but also commercial vehicles as well so basically if a trucker is committing any of those violations that I that I spoke of uh they will be stopped and they are subject to the to the same type of enforcement that uh that a regular a regular car would be okay um we talked about what aggressive driving is can you talk about a little bit more in depth because PE in depth uh people sometimes ask well what constitutes aggressive driving can you talk about that just a bit usually aggressive driving in addition to to the violations that I spoke of before a lot of times aggressive driving is uh those type of violations in in uh in multiples so if you're tailgating weaving in and out a high rate of speed speed and you're doing it continuous or basically more than once you know multiple of times uh that's going to tend to show some aggressive behavior and you're pretty much going to stick out from the rest of the crowd and that that'll that'll get people's attention so that um kind of defines what the aggressive driving is and what we look for yeah I think people have a misconception that oh he's aggressively driving just from one thing it's it's not one thing it's it's a a pattern of things several different offenses that you see that constitute aggressive Drive now I know uh we've done some spots with red momes commercials and stuff like that what do we have in the future as far as upcoming commercials or pios or PSAs to get the message out there to everybody to make it hit home uh that's actually the second uh part of the whole Tac program it's very big on what we refer to is public information and education uh Mr Ed momes and chief mcmanis they did do our TV spot um which was uh which I thought was was great uh in addition to that we have radio spots that should be airing here uh if they haven't already started uh we've done uh some small commercials that you might see if you go to the movie theater before your movies they have those advertisements that roll um just a real quick spot just a reminder that on your way there when you left the movie theater to kind of respect the trucks around you because they're they're not able to maneuver the same way you would um you may notice Billboards around town uh if you're stopped by an officer and they are working over time on this particular project uh if they have them available they will hand out an informational card that will describe exactly what this program is why we're out there and what our mission is or our goal which is to reduce accidents uh they'll hand it to you despite the uh the disciplinary action whether you get a ticket or a warning you'll still get one of these cards and that is just another way to educate uh the drivers truckers alike uh on on what our what our focus is for this project it seems as that a lot of people tend to be in a hurry nowadays on the highways or they're impatient I think a lot of these issues are caused by these factors and a lot of times people think well the 18 wheelers are you should see me but I know a lot of times on 18- wheelers On The Backs they have the placard saying if if you can't see his mirrors he can't see you uh is there a misconception where people don't think that's the case or they just they don't they don't quite understand um how trucks operate and what they see uh yeah absolutely I I think that's huge uh A good rule of thumb is take a look at what you drive you know you drive a regular siiz car uh it's got four wheels versus a big 18-wheeler being probably one of the largest commercial vehicles that's out there they've they've got 18 Wheels uh if you look at the weight of your car at two maybe 3,000 lbs for a normal siiz car well these 18 wheelers can get upwards to about 880,000 lb so I mean the uh the numbers there ought to show that uh even if you're involved in some sort of collision it's the 18wheeler usually going to to come out better in that incident because they're just they're bigger they're larger which also reflects to the fact that they're not able to stop the way you can stop they can't whip in and out of lanes and maneuver the same way that you can they just don't have the capability their their size it's it's almost like a David versus Goliath type thing you know it's just uh it's just it's not possible for them to be able to move as quickly as the smaller Vehicles now um what are the plans for the future as far as education and enforcement do you guys have things planned coming up actually we do we're going to continue uh really heavy on uh on our advertising uh Billboards radio spots uh I think we're going to try and start up our our movie theater ads again um our TV spots uh one of the big things that that we've been doing actually there's a couple big things that are come up one one of the big things is Partnerships with the trucking industry um probably what the general public doesn't know is that the trucking industry spends a lot of time and a lot of money trying to educate the public on on how to operate the trucks so they're responsible for a lot of this program that we're doing um so to build a partnership with this industry and by meaning industry I'm talking about all trucking companies and uh this this Tac program that we've uh We've ad adopted or been awarded uh has really launched our friendship and partnership with with so many large trucking companies here in San Antonio and and a lot of the education and uh enforcement that we do we couldn't do without them so it's just it's it's a before I think it was kind of a US versus them you know the police against uh the truckers and and the uh the drivers which that's not what it's about it's not what we're trying to make it about but um but to now have a partnership and learning how they do things learning what they see in the trucks versus learning how we do things uh it's it's just it it's really helped us a lot and by extension to that one of the programs that we're getting ready to hopefully start in the next couple months is we're going to put an 18-wheeler or some sort of commercial vehicle out on our highway system with an officer on board and that officer will get to see from the trucker uh perspective of how the violations are committed what type of violations are happening that officer will then be able to document the violation radio out to other officers working in the area and uh give a description of the vehicle that committed the violation and the officer out in the field will be able to stop that vehicle and take the appropriate action so that's uh that's an interesting concept that was actually started in Washington state right and uh so we're looking forward to that we're really really hoping that that's going to be a really Uh u high point for this this project that we're working now we know tax stands for ticketing aggressive cars and trucks but the goal is not just ticketing it's it's education it's uh enforcement it's it's an understanding to get the message out there to be safe on the roadways can you talk a little bit about the overview of tax and what it is uh the goal is to reduce accidents safety at first um and that's all types of accidents injury accidents uh fatalities of course and non-entry accidents even the the minor little fender benders that you may see that disrupt the traff traffic flow during morning Rush Hour evening Rush Hour um that's the goal we really want the accidents to come down um enforcement is just one part of it whether it be the truck enforcement that the uh the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Officers provide or that the highway or the traffic officers provide by riding tickets or Warnings or however they they choose to uh to handle that situation but education is probably next in line uh under uh reducing the accidents I mean how do you get people aware of of uh that that this could be potentially an issue for it well you educate them and that's how we do it with our advertisement and uh and um just various other tactics with the informational cards that we hand out so as far as a truck enforcement aspect can you talk about what things you look for as far as those violations or what you're looking for on the truck violations themselves for the uh for the commercial vehicle inspectors um they can really pull over a truck just for inspection purposes so it would be really no fault to the truck driver not meaning that they didn't do anything wrong but what we look for is driver violations such as if they're required by federal law to have a log book we keep track of their time is it fatigue um uh you know too many hours of driving is is that playing a factor here safety equipment Bad tires cracking in the frames um unsecured loads several people you know may have been pelted with gravel or something along those lines so we look for for those type of violations too and if the violation is Ser serious enough as per federal law we do have the authority and the responsibility to put a truck what we refer to as out of service which uh prohibits them from driving until that particular violation is is fixed roadside or escorted to some sort of repair facility okay I guess the big Point here is it doesn't matter who's at fault in the accidents uh the car loses in most of these accidents the car is going to lose you have such a huge uh vehicle as an 18-wheeler um and these cars on the roadway are are at a disadvantage because of their size so we're asking all the drivers uh to slow down to be courteous when you're driving um and to be be be aware trucks around you what they can see and what they can't see correct that is correct uh size definitely does play a factor in it so just be aware uh be safe and be responsible for your driv thanks so much to officer alsup for joining us today I'm sure we'll all be hearing lots more about this initiative in the coming weeks and all the sapd is doing to increase safety [Music] with the approach of the holidays most of our thoughts turn to spending time with families and creating memories it's an unfortunate reality though that some of our holidays may be marred by an encounter with a DWI driver it's refreshing to know that the Sap's DWI and traffic units are making maximum use of their partnership within the community to make this a safe and enjoyable holiday season for everyone until next time I'm Sergeant Javier Salasar and I'm officer Roger Zuniga and this has been behind the badge