Officers honoured as part of Alexa’s Team

Laurel Middelaer is turning personal tragedy into a positive force.

In May 2008, her four-year-old daughter Alexa was killed by an impaired driver.

After the tragedy, Middelaer’s family teamed up with police forces around B.C. to create Alexa’s Team, which pays tributes to officers who are especially diligent in getting drunk drivers off the road.

On Thursday, more than 50 police officers from the Okanagan and Kamloops regions gathered in Kelowna to be honoured as part of Alexa’s Team.

With more than 35 years as a full-time and auxiliary RCMP member, Constable Garry Moritz has more than 2,000 impaired driving investigations to his credit.

Mortiz says he is motivated by tragedies like the untimely death of Alexa.

“I will do everything I can to locate, intercept and apprehend those impaired drivers,” he said.

To make Alexa’s Team, police officers had to successfully lay a minimum of 10 impaired driving charges last year.

Some of the officers honoured took more than 30 drunk drivers off local roads.