Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop E had its annual Christmas party Dec. 4 at the Gordon Event Center in Durant.
Troop E covers Bryan, Atoka, Coal, Choctaw, Pushmataha and McCurtain counties.
Troop E Commander Scott Hampton said the party is for active and retired troopers and communications officers. It is hosted at different locations every year and this year, Durant was chosen.
“The dinner is sponsored by the COHPS organization, which is Concerned Oklahomans for the Highway Patrol Society, and they fund this for all of the patrol troops around the state every year,” Hampton said. “We have a couple of other local businesses that have donated gifts and giveaways for us to raffle out to the active-duty troopers and our dispatchers, and we’re just honored that we get to do this for the troopers and show them a little bit of gratitude for the work they do.”
According to Hampton, the holidays are a very busy time of year for OHP.
“Unfortunately, this time of year is busy for crashes and busy for injury and fatality crashes,” Hampton said. “Unfortunately, we have already exceeded our 2024 fatality numbers in Troop E and that’s not a goal we ever want to be exceeding.”
Hampton cited traffic volumes involving unrestrained, impaired and distracted drivers as the main causes for the wrecks.
A new DUI law with enhanced penalties took effect Nov. 1. It ups the charge to a felony for a DUI for someone who has 0.15 blood alcohol level or more, are involved in a crash, driving 20 miles over the speed limit or 10 miles over in a school zone, driving recklessly, eluding police and having a child in the vehicle. In addition to the felony charge, first-time offenders face a mandatory 10day jail sentence for an aggravated DUI.
“It upped a routine DUI under certain circumstances to felonies,” Hampton said. “Plus, in Troop E, we’ve adopted essentially a no-refusal operation. So, if we have the probable cause to obtain warrants to get samples of blood, we’re doing that in Troop E and it’s giving our prosecutors and our judges the evidence of the crime.”
Hampton said anyone at a 0.15 BAC level is very intoxicated.
“It’s unfortunate,” he said. “We’re really ramping up our impaired driver enforcement across the highway patrol and in Troop E specifically, we’ve taken a very aggressive stance towards that, and our troopers are doing a great job and our partners being the prosecution, the district attorneys, and they are all doing a great job making some accountability.”
