ESTONIA STUDIES DRUNK DRIVING - OF COPS

Police leaders met in Tallinn two weeks ago to discuss improving discipline on the force after a police officer who was driving drunk and without a license hit and killed a woman, pushing the number of deaths caused by allegedly drunk policemen up to five in the last nine months. Officers from each of Estonia's precincts attended the meeting on July 27, but the department has not announced any concrete proposals for enforcing discipline. The latest accident caused by a policeman happened when Tartu junior police inspector, Aleksei Kondrasev, struck and killed a mother of two who was standing near her Volkswagen van on the side of the road on the night of July 25. The police precinct in Tartu also held special meetings to discuss the accident where it was said that the precinct will have stricter rules for police officers both on and off duty, said Tartu police spokesman Peeter Rehema. He did not discuss the exact changes to be made or how such rules will be enforced other than to say that police psychologists would begin working this month to improve police morale and behavior in Tartu. Less than 100 deaths have been caused by drunk driving in the past nine months, according to the Statistical Office of Estonia. Four of them were caused by police officers who were driving while drunk.