Man arrested in 3 Petaluma crashes

A 21-year-old Petaluma man is facing felony drunken driving and hit-and-run charges in connection with three successive collisions Thursday evening involving a total of five cars, authorities said.

Ciriaco Mendoza was arrested as he ran along the railroad tracks near Lakeville and Madison streets, where an officer caught up with him after he allegedly fled from his car, police said.

One man, a 19-year-old driver, was injured in the second of the three collisions, suffering wrist and shoulder fractures, police said. There were no other apparent injuries, police said.

Sgt. Ken Savano said in a news release that authorities first were alerted to concerns about a drunken driver when a 911 caller reported seeing someone stumble from a vehicle to an apartment on Greenbriar Circle near McDowell Park on the east side of town around 5:20 p.m. Thursday.

The man then got back into the car and the caller followed the vehicle for a time before losing track of it, police said.

But then other callers reported a hit-and-run rear-ender involving a similar car on the city’s west side at Ellis and East Washington streets shortly before 6 p.m., police said.

Mendoza allegedly was fleeing from that incident when he struck a car head-on while trying to pass traffic on the Payran Street bridge, police said.

He is suspected then of crashing into the two cars he was trying to pass and finally rendering his own vehicle inoperable, police said.

Once across the bridge, police said, the suspect took off on foot, running west to the railroad tracks and then south along the tracks for about half a mile before he was caught.

Mendoza was arrested on suspicion of felony drunken driving, felony hit-and-run and driving without a license, police said.

He was booked into the Sonoma County Jail, where he was being held Friday in lieu of $42,500 bail.

Police are asking witnesses to the accident to call 778-4372.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com.