RIO RANCHO POLICE OFFICER RECOGNIZED AS NEW MEXICO’S DRUG RECOGNITION EXPERT OF THE YEAR 2020

NMDRE

The New Mexico DRE Program proudly recognizes a New Mexico Law Enforcement Officer who has gone above and beyond in holding drug-impaired drivers accountable in 2020. The New Mexico DRE Committee has selected Officer Michael Hetes, of the Rio Rancho Police Department, as the New Mexico Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) of the Year for 2020.
While the State endured many unknowns and uncertainties throughout the pandemic, Officer Hetes continued to seek out and identify drug-impaired drivers and removed them from New Mexico’s roadways. Officer Hetes’ enforcement evaluations alone, accounted for over 5% of the States’ total enforcement evaluations for 2020. Officer Hetes promptly enters his enforcement evaluations into a national tracking database to help ensure New Mexico and federal partners have an accurate representation of drug, and drug-impaired driving trends in our State.
In 2020, Officer Hetes’ maintained a 100% accuracy rate in determining the specific drug category (or categories) a suspected drug-impaired driver was under the influence of, as corroborated by toxicology results.
Officer Hetes is a six-year veteran of the Rio Rancho Police Department. He has been assigned to the Departments’ DWI Unit since March 2016. He serves the Rio Rancho Police Department and State of New Mexico as a Standardized Field Sobriety Testing/DWI Instructor and in 2020, has volunteered his DWI expertise to assist the NMDRE Program’s training program.
Officer Hetes will be recognized at the New Mexico DRE Committee Meeting in March 2021 and has been invited to attend the 27th Annual Conference on Drugs, Alcohol and Impaired Driving in Orlando, Florida in August 2021.