Concord Police Department deploys new DWI Task Force

CONCORD, N.C. — The Concord Police Department deployed its DWI Task Force for the first time Friday night at the Charlotte Motor Speedway to enforce the law.

The force is made up of 12 officers who on their days off conduct unannounced patrols and set up license-checking stations.

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They use real-time traffic data to home in on what locations to patrol.

“It's the number of crashes we can prevent and the number of lives we can save,” Concord Police Chief Gary Gacek said. “What we're looking for is voluntary compliance of the law. We want people to stop driving impaired. It's that simple.”

Gacek hopes the task force and its presence will change people’s choices before they get behind the wheel, making the streets and community safer.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in traffic accidents. The city’s growing. As you can imagine, there’s a lot more traffic on the roadways,” said Gacek.

Driver crashes into south Charlotte laundromat Driver crashes into south Charlotte laundromat

The Concord Police Department told Channel 9 that there were 12 total arrests in the city of Concord Friday night for impaired driving. Seven of those arrests were made by the task force.

The DWI task force will be back out on New Year’s Eve for another operation.

The task force started to join with the statewide Booze It and Lose it campaign, our partners at the Independent Tribune reported.

“We see the tragedy not just in the person, but in the family and the network and the community,” said Gacek.

Below are the stats of charges from the task’s force’s first operation Friday: