KNIGHTDALE — Knightdale Police Officer Chuck Capps says his job is rewarding when he gets to help people like the time he caught a prowler red-handed, much to the relief of the woman inside the home.

He also likes to get drunk drivers off the road.

“I don’t like it (drinking and driving) because it potentially is putting your family and my family at risk,” said Capps.

So when Capps heard about the possibility of getting a ECIR II, the latest model of alcohol breath test instrument, in eastern Wake County, he quickly notified Police Chief D.R. Simmons.

Brian Smith, a forensic test instructor, for the Department of Health and Human Services told Capps about the new instruments when he was in a class with him, Capps recalled.

The ECIR II is a year old, and the state was in the process of replacing the old standard instruments when Capps heard about the program. Eastern Wake County didn’t even have the older model, he said.

“We installed it because we got a request,” said Paul Glover, branch head of forensic tests for alcohol. “About 4,500 people a year are arrested and tested on them in Wake County alone, and that puts a lot of demands on that (the Raleigh) test site.”

They are paid for by the N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety program.

Glover said his division purchased 369 new instruments and the old ones have now all been replaced.

Simmons and Capps jumped at the chance at secure one, and the town of Knightdale built a small room in a storage room for the instrument.

Capps said it makes convicting DWI suspects more likely and easier. Before the breath-test center was located in eastern Wake, officers had to drive to Raleigh to test someone for a DWI. After processing the person, they might have to wait up to two hours to test the suspect for intoxication, Capps said.

“They still have to go before a magistrate,” said Glover “But before we put one there, they had to test at CCBI in Raleigh.”

“It was just something I was happy to do,” says Capps.

The new machine can be used by any law enforcement agency in eastern Wake County.