SR man who ran down girls completed last drunk driving course in April

A Santa Rosa man arrested in a suspected drunken driving crash that seriously injured two teen-aged sisters waiting at a bus stop has a lengthy criminal record in Sonoma County marked with drugs, alcohol and three drunken-driving convictions.

His arrest marks the second time in less than a week that a driver with multiple DUI convictions is suspected of killing or seriously hurting others in crashes in Santa Rosa.

Mike Tweedie, who turned 35 on Christmas, remained in the Sonoma County Jail on $30,000 bail Monday. He was due to be arraigned today on felony charges connected to Saturday's crash on Yulupa Avenue.

That's when his Ford Ranger pickup flipped multiple times and struck the two girls waiting at a bus stop with their father, police said. Tweedie fled the scene, police said, and was arrested later Saturday at a nearby apartment.

One of the girls, Cruz Pineda, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, is at Children's Hospital in Oakland and is reported to be in a coma undergoing treatment for a brain injury.

Her sister, Deysi Pineda, a 15-year-old Montgomery High School student, was recovering from broken bones and was in stable condition at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

Saturday's incident is just the latest accusation of impaired driving facing Tweedie. He was convicted of DUI three times in Sonoma County, according to court records, and completed the county's DUI education program after each incident.

He also apparently has been treated in residential rehabilitation facilities at least twice, in Glen Ellen and Eureka.

In case after case during the past 12 years, Tweedie was given probation, minimal jail time and the opportunity for drug and alcohol treatment. None of his prior convictions apparently involved injuries.

Sgt. Doug Schlief of Santa Rosa Police Department's traffic division said officers "frequently" run into repeat DUI offenders when making traffic stops.

"I would imagine that the chance (of running into a repeat offender) is pretty high," Schlief said.

Various programs targeting repeat offenders are in place, Schlief said, including a citywide list of top 10 DUI offenders officers are asked to be on the lookout for at all times.

"You take one (offender) off the streets, that's good enough right there," he said. "It's better than zero."

But that doesn't mean that most, or even many, repeat DUI offenders are staying off the streets, he said.

"The number out there is so great that it's never ending," Schlief said.

On Dec. 29, 52-year-old Rosanne Starr Webb was weaving in and out of traffic on Highway 12 in east Santa Rosa when she struck a Jeep, sending it off the road, and crashed head-on into a car driven by 77-year-old Beverly Rick.

Both Webb and Rick were killed. Webb had four DUI convictions and was driving without a license on the day of the crash.

Tweedie's first conviction, in 1995 for being drunk in public at age 22, may have foreshadowed his arrest eight months later on a misdemeanor DUI charge.

In that case, he was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to attend the First Time Drunk Drivers Program administered by the county. He completed the course, court records show, but violated the terms of his probation and was ordered in August 1997 to serve 30 days in jail.

In 1999, he was convicted again of misdemeanor DUI, the typical charge when a driver has a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08 percent and no one is injured.

Tweedie pleaded no contest and admitted having one prior DUI conviction.

While he was in treatment, his attorney entered a no contest plea for him and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, which he'd already served as the case progressed, three years' probation and DUI school for the second time. He also was ordered to pay about $1,500 in drunken driving-related fines and had his driver's license restricted for 18 months.

But in August 2000, he was arrested for violating his probation when he failed to complete DUI school. He enrolled and completed the course a year later, court records show.

The next few years, Tweedie was in and out of the Hall of Justice for cases including drug and weapons convictions and two arrests for being drunk in public.

He was denied participation in the county's drug court, meant to keep nonviolent drug offenders out of prison and get them medical help. Instead, he was sentenced to a year in jail in connection with two cases, court records show.

Inmates can serve half their sentence with good-behavior credits. It wasn't clear from records available Monday how many days Tweedie served.

In July 2004, Tweedie pleaded guilty to his third DUI, another misdemeanor. Court records show that even though this was his third DUI conviction, only two were counted as part of his record.

Until recently, a previous DUI would have dropped off a person's criminal record as a prior conviction after seven years. Tweedie's first arrest was in 1996, eight years before.

Now, prior convictions remain for 10 years.

On his third conviction, Tweedie was referred to the "multiple offenders drunk-driving program" for repeat offenders and ordered to have an Interlock ignition device installed on his vehicle for the next 18 months. He also was put on five years' probation and ordered to serve a month in jail.

A month later, in August 2004, he was charged with his first felony, a drug charge. He agreed to plead guilty and prosecutors recommended no prison time to the judge. Tweedie was given probation again and eight months in jail, to be released when space in a drug treatment facility opened.

In February 2005, court minutes showed the judge admonished him about his continued failures: "Court advises defendant that he absolutely must complete drug treatment."

In April 2005, court records showed he was released to a parent who was to take him to a residential alcohol treatment facility in Eureka.

On May 9, 2006, a judge granted Tweedie's request to have the Interlock device removed. The device is similar to a breathalyzer that is installed in a vehicle's dashboard. A driver must breathe into the device with little or no alcohol in their system before the vehicle will start.

Just three weeks earlier, Tweedie had enrolled in the multiple-offender DUI school. But by January 2007, according to court records, he hadn't completed the course, a warrant was issued for his arrest and his probation revoked.

After his arrest two months later, his probation was reinstated and his license restricted for another 18 months.

SR man who ran down girls completed last drunk driving course in April sArtHead = "SR man who ran down girls completed last drunk driving course in April"

SR man who ran down girls completed last drunk driving course in April