New Highway Patrol team targets impaired drivers

By Christy Mullins - cmullins@heraldonline.com

When police found a teenager dead on the side of the road in 2007, it took three days to find the man who they believe was drunk when he struck and killed the teen with his car.

Jimmy Ray Pickens of Rock Hill is serving a 10 year prison sentence for felony DUI after police say he left 18-year-old Kenneth “Scooter” Encinas to die two miles from the teen's home on the side of McConnells Highway.

On Wednesday, Kenneth's parents stood beside Highway Patrol troopers at Buster Boyd Bridge in Lake Wylie as officers announced a 31-person DUI team that will work to keep impaired drivers off South Carolina roads.

Five troopers will begin scouring seven counties, including York, Lancaster and Chester, over the July 4 weekend, and the team will continue to patrol in marked, semi-marked and unmarked vehicles “until people quit drinking and driving in South Carolina,” said Trooper Col. Kenny Lancaster.

The team will respond only to DUI violations and will sometimes work in conjunction with other agencies.

So far this year, troopers have made 968 DUI arrests. By concentrating their efforts this summer, they hope to make more arrests.

“We're trying to send a message across this state that this is real,” Lancaster said.

For two parents at Wednesday's kickoff, the message couldn't be more real.

Amy Encinas wore a T-shirt with her son's school picture printed on the front. Two more of Kenneth's photos were framed in a heart shaped locket around her neck. And on her arm dangled a rubber bracelet that urged, “Stop DUI.”

She and her husband, Ken, want not only strict enforcement but larger consequences for drunk driving. In the meantime, the couple said they pick up pedestrians on the side of the road to keep others safe.

Traffic-related fatalities for York County are high for a population its size, county coroner Sabrina Gast said, and at least 50 percent of the traffic fatalities this year have been alcohol-related. Sixteen people have died in York County traffic accidents since January.

“That's a lot,” Gast said. “We've just gotten into the summer months.”

Nearly half of all highway deaths each year in South Carolina are attributed to DUI, high above the nationwide average of 34 percent.

Highway Patrol officials said DUI crashes occur most heavily in York and Lancaster counties, and the DUI team will target Rock Hill, Fort Mill and Indian Land.