Morrow police crack down on reckless drivers, speeders after DUI crash kills mom, unborn child

MORROW, Ga. - Morrow police warn speeders and other traffic violators to put on the brakes.

The department has launched a new initiative to curb dangerous driving in the area.

Police are cracking down on dangerous drivers two weeks after a deadly DUI crash at this busy intersection that claimed the life of a mother and her unborn child.

FOX 5 was there as a driver was taken into custody during a traffic stop Friday morning. Morrow Police officials said the woman was traveling 94 miles an hour, well over the posted speed limit, and was driving without a license.

"We are out here enforcing things that when you are riding around out here in a place like Morrow somebody blows your doors off and you hope there is a cop ahead, that's what we are doing. We are going to be that cop," Lt. Skelton said.

The Morrow Police Department reported nearly 1,100 motor vehicle crashes in 2021, including 95 that involved injuries and three fatalities. Just last month, a 19-year-old woman and her unborn child were killed when, police said, a drunk driver barreled through a red light here at the intersection of Morrow Road and Jonesboro Road.

"It was a driver that was DUI. He slammed into the passenger side of the compact vehicle. She was a passenger. She was seven months pregnant at the time," said Lt. Skelton.

The department's Strategic Traffic Enforcement and Enhanced Response initiative, is made up of officers from every division of the police Department, tripling the number of officers patrolling Morrow for Friday's operation, which targeted violators in the vicinity of Interstate 75 and Jonesboro Road.

The team will focus on crash- and injury-causing behaviors, including: drunk and drugged driving, speeding, distracted driving, and seatbelt and child restraint law violations.

The police department publicized the effort well in advance of its launch and put drivers on notice Friday's operation is the first of more to come.

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