DANVILLE — Here along I-16 over the weekend, 20 or so minutes southeast of Macon, the sheriff’s department’s annual Operation Wrong Exit reeled in scores of unsuspecting motorists who couldn’t resist the urge to elude the law.
Instead of evading detection, 62 drove themselves into handcuffs.
The setup was simple, and for more than a decade and a half it has worked like a St. Patrick’s Day charm.
Cops from across the state, led by Twiggs County sheriff’s deputies, place a pair of portable electronic message boards along the freeway’s eastbound lanes a quarter-mile before Exit 27.
“DUI & Drug Checkpoint Ahead,” the messages read.
As cars approach the signs, drivers can also see, just up the highway beneath an overpass, the flashing blue lights of two parked patrol cars.
But the cars are empty. They’re decoys. And, invariably, motorists with something to hide — drugs, opened booze, weapons they shouldn’t have — choose to dart off the interstate and up what seems an opportune exit. But around a bend in the off-ramp, out of sight until it is too late, wait an army of police.
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr,
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr,
Over the course of two days, Friday and Saturday, 24 of the 62 arrests were for alleged felonies, most involving drug charges. A couple of dozen were for DUIs. Eleven pounds of pot were confiscated.
The annual police ruse is timed to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah, which drew big crowds again on the weekend ahead of Monday’s parade. Many revelers travel from Atlanta and elsewhere, taking I-16 to get there.
A mother and daughter from Paulding County were arrested Saturday for allegedly trafficking methamphetamine. Cops said they were caught smuggling six kilograms of the drug.
On Friday, three women in a Tesla, the driver from East Point, were bound for the festivities in Savannah. They claimed to have pulled off the freeway to use the restroom, but there are no facilities at the exit, which is bereft of gas marts or eateries. It is an off-ramp to nothing but Georgia countryside.
The Tesla driver was cited for allegedly having an open bottle of Tito’s vodka and some marijuana cigarettes. The charges were misdemeanors and the women were on their way in about an hour. The police seized their joints and poured out their Tito’s, but the women seemed to take the detour in stride.
“Now,” the driver told the cops, laughing, “we got to spend extra time with our therapists because y’all took all our weed.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
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