Law enforcement in Mower County made 85 traffic stops during the recent Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) DWI enforcement period, according to data released by the Austin Police Department.

Of those stops, eight led to speeding citations, four to no license violations and two to DWI arrests.

The Austin Police Department and Mower County Sheriff’s Office were two of over 300 law enforcement agencies throughout Minnesota to participate in the extra enforcement period, which ran from Aug. 17 to Sept. 2. Extra enforcement periods are held throughout the year with local law enforcement getting overtime hours with funding from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety (DPS-OTC).

According to the DPS-OTC, 1,369 DWI arrests were made across the state during the extra enforcement period, one less than last year at the same time. One arrest was that of an Alexandria woman who drove drunk to the dentist’s office with her 3-year-old child in the vehicle and had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.21, over 2 ½ times the legal limit, at 2:30 p.m. Another involved a drunk driver in Osakis who was arrested for going more than 130 miles per hour with a minor in the vehicle.

The highest BAC of a driver arrested during the extra enforcement period was 0.38, almost five times the legal limit, from a driver in Anoka County, according to the DPS-OTC.