Holiday Enforcement Numbers Are In

 

JACKSON, Miss. -- The Mississippi Highway Patrol was kept very busy over the New Year’s Holiday enforcement period.

Troopers wrote up nearly 6,500 citations.  “With that 162 DUI arrest,” said Spokesperson Master Sergeant Johnny Poulos.

He tells me they also worked 198 traffic accidents.  “And unfortunately, we had four fatalities.”  That’s one more than a year earlier.  “But keep in mind, last year was a three day enforcement period, compared to a five day enforcement period this year,” he explained.

Those four deaths only account for traffic fatalities on Mississippi roadways patrolled by troopers.  Other local law enforcement agencies are reporting at least eight others, include those five Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian children and a family friend.  They were killed over the weekend after their SUV ran off the road into a rain-swollen creek in .  The father of the children is now charged with 6 counts of DUI manslaughter.