RUMFORD — Police say a local man drove drunk on Tuesday afternoon onto school property at Mountain Valley High School to pick up two teens.
At 2:43 p.m. on Somerset Street, near the high school, Rumford Sgt. Tracey Higley arrested Kevin J. Nasatowicz, 52, on a charge of operating under the influence. He was released on $1,000 bail. Police didn’t have an arraignment date yet for Nasatowicz in Rumford District Court.
Capt. Daniel Garbarini said Wednesday that Nasatowicz’s blood-alcohol level was “three times more than the legal limit and he was picking up children from the high school.”
Maine’s legal limit is 0.08 percent. Garbarini said Higley was patrolling the area when he saw Nasatowicz fail to yield at an intersection and pulled him over to investigate.
The captain said Sgt. Higley works with schoolchildren trying to teach them to make the right choices. Higley is one of the department’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education officers.
“I think it’s an example to encourage children to make good choices,” Garbarini said of the incident. “If they realize the person picking them up is intoxicated, they can say, ‘No.’”
In May, that point will be driven home through the national “Every Fifteen Minutes” program. Every 15 minutes, someone dies from an alcohol-related collision.
Rumford police and RSU 10 will introduce that program to all four grades at the high school, challenging students to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, and the responsibility of making mature decisions. It also focuses on impacts their decisions will have on family and friends.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
