State Budget Crisis Eliminates Funding For Holiday Traffic Enforcement
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Riverside Police say they were able to get an illegally armed, drunk driver off the road this weekend -- just hours after they'd been told by the state that no budget meant no money to fund holiday traffic enforcement.
So the police chief in Riverside, Tom Weitzel, went rogue, in a sense.
Weitzel says he was notified by IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation) that starting early Sunday morning, there would not be anymore funding for DUI enforcement over the holiday.
Weitzel says he told his officers to keep working regardless. Furthermore, he says they arrested a drunk driver who had plowed into a car and kept going.
"He was under the influence of alcohol, he admitted to smoking cannabis and taking Xanax that was not prescribed for him," Weitzel said.
Plus, Weitzel says the man had a gun but no permit.
"Drug and drunk driving is really pervasive. And I can't imagine that they would pull the funding over the Fourth of July holiday."
Chief Weitzel says he may get reimbursed -- when and if there's a state budget. In the meantime, he says he'll find the money elsewhere.