Like other officers at the Plant City Police Department, Quentin Garrell knows all too well what it’s like to pull over someone for a DUI and make an arrest.
Having made the most DUI arrests last year for PCPD earned him an accolade at the 2022 Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Florida Law Enforcement Recognition and Training Symposium, from July 29 to July 30, at the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort.
In his six years at the Plant City Police Department, he has dealt with approximately 100 DUI cases.
“I’ve done DUIs all throughout the city,” Garrell said.
Driving under the influence can be a common occurrence during the daytime as it is at night and Garrell’s earliest DUI pullover was at 4 p.m.
There are multiple cues that an officer can pick up on for whether someone is operating a vehicle when impaired.
“The officer might sit behind them for one light cycle or two light cycles and then get out of their vehicle and walk up to the car,” said Captain Al Van Duyne of the Plant City Police Department. “That can happen at 3 in the afternoon or 3 in the morning.”
Like other officers on the road, he tries to look for the signs that indicate that a driver may be impaired. He has had to pull over individuals that have been swerving from one lane to the next.
Once the vehicle has stopped and Garrell has approached the driver, he’s had to observe if there is slurred speech, if that person is having a difficult time pulling his or her license from their wallet, if they’re stumbling out of the vehicle, or if they have watery and bloodshot eyes. Sometimes the smell of alcohol is so strong that he’s able to pick up on it the moment the driver rolls down their window, he said.
Garrell has had encounters with a repeat offender who’s had a felony DUI and may be facing time in prison.
Drivers will be, for the most part, willing to follow instructions once pulled over by an officer, he said.
“You do have some that…they’ll be compliant for a period of time but then whenever it registers that they’re getting arrested, that’s when the non-compliance will start,” he added.
In most cases, there will be two officers on the scene should the driver become unruly, Van Duyne noted.
“Me personally in my experience, because of the amount of DUIs that I’ve done, whenever I’m driving behind that vehicle and I suspect impairment and now I’m going to pull (them) over, I personally will already call (an officer),” Garrell said. “I already know that there’s a possibility of whenever I get up there, this is going to go further into a DUI investigation.”
Garrell has also learned with experience that an officer can’t always assume that a person is under the influence when they’re exhibiting unusual behavior on the road…it’s possible that they could be having a medical emergency.
“That was one of the big eye openers to me,” he said. “Medical episodes and an impairment sometimes can mimic each other, so it takes that ability to say, ‘okay this isn’t medical, it’s impairment, or this is impairment, it’s not medical.”
In one instance Garrell was off duty at a gas station and noticed a woman who was exhibiting DUI cues. He contacted authorities and waited until deputies arrived on the scene. However, once they were present, the signs the woman was showing had subsided, which was an indication that maybe she was impaired by something else other than alcohol, which takes more time to wear off, Garrell said.
DUIs not only constitute as alcohol-related but drug-related as well. Even unintentional drug impairment can be enough to get a driver arrested for a DUI.
Once Garrell pulled over someone who had taken prescribed medication but was advised not to when operating a vehicle.
He let the driver go with a warning.
Coming across DUI cases is also something personal for Garrell, who lost a friend to a drunk driver.
“It brings back that feeling of ‘I wish that person could have been stopped before my friend was killed,’” he said.
While he is appreciative for the trophy he had won, he still understands that addressing DUI cases is another important part of the job that he will continue to handle.