Sheriff cites joint city/county checkpoints

PHOTOGRAPHER: Steven Cook

Two police-sheriff sobriety checkpoints in recent weeks have netted a total of 10 people charged with drunken driving, according to the Schenectady County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff Dominic Dagostino said Friday the joint work is a sign of things to come.

The sobriety checkpoints also netted two individuals for driving while ability impaired and more than 100 total tickets and citations, according to sheriff’s numbers.

“That’s good stuff,” Dagostino said Friday. “If you have that stuff going on constantly, I think people will tend to become a little more aware, because they don’t want that aggravation. They become a little more cautious and that’s what we’re looking for.”

The checkpoints ran once each of the past two weekends, each from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The first was held on Broadway, near the county social services building, on Feb. 18. The second was held last Saturday night on Nott Terrace.

Both checkpoints were joint sheriff-Schenectady police operations, Dagostino said. Four deputies and four officers worked last weekend’s checkpoint, while six deputies and five officers worked the Broadway checkpoint.

Helping pay for the efforts, Dagostino said, are funds from the STOP DWI program.

Dagostino said he intends to continue to run similar programs monthly, either checkpoints or other focused efforts.

Each of the programs is to be a joint effort between the sheriff’s department and one of the police departments in the county, he said.

Dagostino said it wasn’t so much that the efforts weren’t being done previously, but they’re trying now to keep them up.

“This is just one small aspect of some of the things we’re looking to do with respect to cooperative work,” Dagostino said. “This is just the beginning.”

Among the other numbers from the two checkpoints were 14 charges of aggravated unlicensed operation, 24 citations for uninspected motor vehicles, nine no seat belts, and one arrest on a warrant for endangering the welfare of a child.