Police tackle crime in Labor Day weekend

Criminal activity over the Labor Day weekend was a mixed bag for the Chattanooga Police Department with a handful of DUI arrests and an officer-involved shooting.

From midnight Friday through 11:59 p.m. Monday night, Chattanooga police arrested 10 people for driving under the influence.

Sgt. Justin Kilgore with the department’s traffic unit said they don’t cast projections for expected arrests on holiday weekends.

“The Chattanooga Police Department DUI Unit does not work off of expectations on how many people they can arrest over a particular holiday,” Kilgore said in an emailed statement. “What they do is always work to enforce the laws in order to keep our citizens safe.”

“We always hope that people are listening to PSA’s and are learning how dangerous drinking and driving is no matter what time of the year it is,” he added.

A spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office could not provide numbers Wednesday on the number of holiday DUI arrests made by the agency.

Also over the holiday weekend, a suspect was injured early Monday in an officer-involved shooting in the 5200 block of Central Avenue. Hamilton County District Attorney General Neal Pinkston has asked the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office to investigate, which is standard in officer-involved shooting cases.

Officers responded to a call about a suspicious person at the location around 12:19 a.m., and during an interaction with the suspect, officers fired. The suspect was taken to a local hospital and all officers who were on the scene at the time of the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, per department policy.

The Times Free Press previously reported that during last year’s Labor Day holiday two people were killed in a triple shooting in a home on the 7400 block of Pinewood Drive.

This year’s Labor Day weekend proved deadly across the state with four boating-related fatalities on Cherokee Lake, the Chickamauga Reservoir and Kentucky Lake, according to a release from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

The agency is continuing investigation of the incidents, and officers also arrested four individuals who were allegedly boating under the influence. The fatalities raise the total of boating deaths up to 14 statewide this year.