Mother, officers share stories of deaths by DUI

SOUTH SALT LAKE — J.J. Tabish liked to break dance. He liked basketball and he liked to write poetry.

All of that was taken away Oct. 8, 2002, after a day of drinking Black Velvet with friends left him dead on a road in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Tabish, 17, was in a sport utility vehicle going almost 100 mph that rolled multiple times after the driver, 18, who had also been drinking, lost control.

Investigators said the two teens had been given alcohol by a 35-year-old man, whom Tabish's mother calls a "scumbag." It was a pattern the man had, said Salt Lake County sheriff's deputy Mike Anderson; he liked to give teens alcohol.

The two teens died that night.

And all Norma Tabish has now are the pictures. Pictures of J.J. in which he is forever 17 years old, pictures of him with his family and pictures of the mangled wreck of the SUV after the crash. She also has pictures of J.J.'s lifeless, battered body.

They are pictures she shows people who don't understand why youths should not be allowed to drink alcohol. And she hopes the message is getting out.

So does Anderson, who investigates major crashes for the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office.

"I can tell you story after story like this," Anderson said.

Total traffic fatalities across the United States each year number 58,000 — more than the number of those who died during 11 years of fighting in the Vietnam War.

"You don't see people up in arms over these deaths," Anderson said.

Anderson spoke with the Deseret Morning News after a news conference kicking off the latest DUI enforcement campaign Friday night run by the Utah Highway Patrol, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office, West Valley police, Taylorsville police and Salt Lake City police.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is providing 760 hours of overtime shifts to law-enforcement agencies throughout Utah so they can run sobriety checkpoints and patrol highways and roads more heavily through Jan. 1, 2006.

Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard, whose agency is in charge of public safety for 300,000 county residents, said Utah is a small but proactive state when it comes to DUI enforcement.

That's why the federal government provides money for officers to work overtime, he said. He expects his officers will get to use up to 25 percent of the overtime shifts in Salt Lake County.