By Patrick McCreless
The Fourth of July holiday weekend was relatively quiet for local law enforcement this year.
“Yes, that’s pretty typical,” said Cullman County Sheriff Tyler Roden. “We don’t necessarily see anything out of the ordinary from any other busy weekend.”
According to sheriff’s reports, deputies had just three driving under the influence (DUI) arrests between Friday and Sunday. Deputies also made five drug possession arrests, three illegal possession of alcohol arrests, one public intoxication arrest and wrote seven citations for driver license violations and three for no vehicle insurance. Various traffic citations were also written, Roden said.
Cullman police also saw little action over the holiday.
“It was pretty quiet as far as Fourth of July activities,” said Cullman Police Chief Kenny Culpepper. “We mainly had a lot of fireworks calls and noise complaints.”
In addition, the police department had two DUI arrests, an open house party arrest and two reports of vehicle burglaries.
The holiday was even fairly slow for Alabama State Troopers in Cullman County, which mirrored what troopers experienced across the state.
Alabama State Trooper Spokesman Curtis Summerville said Cullman County had no vehicle fatalities between Thursday and Sunday, adding that only three vehicle fatalities were reported across the state during the holiday.
“That’s something we’re very proud of,” Summerville said of the low fatality rate.
Last year over the Independence Day weekend, 16 people died in vehicle wrecks around the state.
Over the holiday, troopers worked eight wrecks in Cullman County, only one of which resulted in an injury. The troopers also made one DUI arrest, wrote 129 traffic tickets and 79 non-hazard tickets, such as vehicle license violations.
Statewide, troopers made 152 DUI arrests and worked 230 wrecks, 17 of which were alcohol related. In all, troopers wrote 3,004 traffic tickets across the state.
‰ Patrick McCreless can be reached by e-mail at patrickm@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131 ext. 270.
