The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
CNG Boro Politics

Drunk drivers are no match for this cop

By Sarah Portlock
The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Sarah Portlock
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly stopped by to give 84th Precinct officer Larry Santiago his “Cop of the Year” award, which he won for making 24 arrests of drunk drivers in 2008.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

The only people not toasting police officer Larry Santiago this week are the drunk drivers that he busts.

Santiago, a two-and-a-half-year NYPD vet, was handed the 84th Precinct’s “Cop of the Year” award on Tuesday night, a tribute to his 24 drunk-driving arrests in 2008.

Brooklyn Bridge Realty

That’s nearly one-third of the precinct’s DWI collars, said his commanding officer, Capt. Mark DiPaolo.

The number is even more impressive, DiPaolo said, because Santiago was often called upon to administer drunk-driving tests against some drivers’ will.

“It’s a great expertise to recognize the behavior of a drunk driver,” DiPaolo said. “This officer has exemplified the difficulty of recognizing these signs and seeing to the arrest.”

Santiago works overnight on the precinct’s meanest streets: Tillary Street and Flatbush Avenue, veritable speedways for Manhattan-exiting boozers, DiPaolo said.

How good is Santiago? None other than NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly was on hand to congratulate the officer in the Borough Hall ceremony.

“You’ve saved lives,” the top cop said.

©2009 The Brooklyn Paper

←DUMBO: Most egg-cellent podcast! Paper team makes news on coldest day
→Parenting: Our exclusive family calendar!

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.