Constable Curtis Warnar has been policing in Regina for nine years. His active Twitter presence has boosted interaction with the public, and his account now has over 3500 followers.
He says there are few things that have truly bothered him in his career, but Wednesday morning was an exception.
“Just finished with an Impaired Driver who blew 340/320mg% (4 times the legal limit),” he tweeted.
“This driver was trying to drive their kids to school.”
Warnar said in an interview with Global News Wednesday that the children in the car were repeatedly asking their dad to stop driving, as they could tell he was heavily intoxicated.
Warnar was the arresting officer on the call.
“That’s the highest breath test I’ve ever done, and I’ve been breath testing for about five and a half years now,” Warnar said.
“He wasn’t able to walk on his own, so we had to actually carry him to the car.”
Warnar said this kind of event puts impaired driving into perspective for others.
“(This) isn’t contained to evenings. It’s not contained to weekends. It’s not contained to certain people, or areas where there’s bars or liquor stores or those kind of things. It can happen at any day at any time,” he said.
The driver is facing a slew of charges, including impaired operation of a motor vehicle, exceeding the legal blood-alcohol limit, driving while suspended and operating an unregistered vehicle. There was also another charge for having open alcohol in the vehicle.
“Even if we can reach one person that sees the message through social media, gets the message and says ‘You know what I’m going out for drinks tonight, (the) car is going to stay home’ (…) that would be great.”
In his tweet, he asked what it would take for people to get the message that impaired driving needs to stop.
“I fear that people won’t get the message until it hits too close to home, but by then it’s too late,” Warnar tweeted.