ATLANTA - The Georgia State Patrol has provided a summary of its activities during Southern Worthersee (SoWo) 2015 in Helen over the weekend.
"GSP was requested to assist the Helen Police Department with traffic during the Southern Worthersee event May 15-16," the statement from Capt. Mark S. Perry reads. "GSP provided 14 troopers each day from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. GSP aviation units were available and on-call during the entire event. The troopers' primary responsibility was traffic enforcement and monitoring traffic ingressing and egressing from the area."
During Tuesday's Helen City Commission meeting, city leaders and others were critical of GSP for pulling out of the city Saturday night.
According to Perry, "As conditions inside the city of Helen deteriorated during the evening hours of May 16, the GSP on-scene commander communicated with city officials and offered to mobilize additional GSP personnel to enter the city to assist with crowd control. The offer to bring in additional troopers was declined.
"With only 14 available troopers, the decision was made to continue the original mission of traffic enforcement and monitoring with the understanding that GSP would enter the city if requested to do so to protect life or property," the statement reads. "GSP commanders never received a request for additional assistance. The 14-person traffic team remained in White County and was available to respond until 3 a.m. on May 17."
During the SoWo event, troopers from GSP issued 121 citations, 81 warnings, made 23 arrests for driving under the influence, charged three people for suspended license and five for no driver's license, made four misdemeanor drug arrests, one felony drug arrest, were involved in one pursuit, and conducted 161 trafffic stops.
