July 4 DWI patrols ramped up as officials urge Long Islanders to drive sober this summer

Nineteen-year-old Emily Cordano said she still hasn’t healed from the death of her close friend, Andrew McMorris, who was killed by a drunken driver in 2018 while hiking with his Boy Scout Troop at the age of 12.

The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office intern shared McMorris’ story and asked her peers to make smart decisions on the road this summer at a news conference announcing the office’s Summer STOP-DWI Campaign Tuesday.

Cordano, who volunteers at the Andrew McMorris Foundation, described McMorris as a spirited boy she grew up with, playing together in the McMorris' Wading River backyard. She was 12 years old when she heard the news — a moment she said she couldn't process at the time.

"This selfish decision changed the life of not just one person, but a whole community," said Cordano, referring to the decision of the driver, Thomas Murphy, who was convicted of drunken driving in Andrew's death in 2023.

The campaign will target young adults, as drivers ages 21 to 34 were responsible for nearly half of all Fourth of July alcohol-related fatalities nationally in 2023, said Suffolk County Sheriff Errol D. Toulon Jr.

Toulon said impaired driving has surged after the legalization of marijuana, and the department is on track to break last year’s DWI arrest record of 209, having made 116 arrests so far this year.

"We’re all old enough to make our own decisions. We’re old enough to speak to one another first and to have a plan before you go out and start drinking," said Cordano.

Cordano urged people to have a designated driver and use rideshare services over the holiday weekend and beyond.

The sheriff’s office plans to increase patrols and sobriety checkpoints from Huntington to the Hamptons starting July 4 through the summer. The office selects high volume areas with lots of traffic, bars and restaurants for checkpoints and partners with different agencies to cover the entire county, Public Information Officer Vicki DiStefano said.

"Deputies will be out on the road more than ever," said Toulon.

Suffolk leads the state in traffic fatalities in recent years, according to Carl Borelli, the district attorney’s bureau chief of vehicular crime. 

Nationwide, around 32% of traffic fatalities involve drunken drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to a Newsday analysis of data from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management and Research in Albany, about 41% of the 695 traffic fatalities in Suffolk from 2019 to 2023 involved "substance-related" drivers — more than statewide, where the figure was approximately 31%, and in Nassau, where it was nearly 35%, according to the Newsday report.

Law enforcement is limited in the arrests it can make for drug-impaired driving as New York law requires the drug to be named and be present on a pre-existing list, making it more difficult to combat the issue, Borelli said. New York is one of four states that have yet to change this.

The Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee also announced that the New York State Police and local law enforcement agencies will increase patrols and conduct sobriety checkpoints June 30 through July 6.