Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
A 34-year-old Keshena man was picked up for drunken driving twice within 24 hours last week, according to authorities.
The man’s first arrest was about 11:30 p.m. Thursday at Fifth and Main streets in the city of Shawano after a Shawano County sheriff’s deputy spotted a vehicle traveling partially on the sidewalk on North Main Street.
The man was pulled over and arrested for first-offense operating while intoxicated and operating with a valid driver’s license.
He was first taken to ThedaCare Medical Center-Shawano for a blood draw. Those results were not available, but Sheriff Adam Bieber said the man was “very intoxicated.”
He was then taken to Shawano County Jail, where the usual procedure in the case of first-offense OWI is to hold the driver until sober or until the driver can be picked up by a sober adult who will take responsibility for him.
Bieber said the man’s father eventually picked him up at the jail.
Then, at 2:30 p.m. Friday, about 15 hours later, Shawano police and sheriff’s deputies responded to a reckless driving complaint on North Airport Drive.
Police had several calls about a vehicle that almost rear-ended another car and nearly struck another vehicle head-on, according to the police report.
The vehicle was located in a driveway on Airport Drive, and the man was taken into custody a second time.
According to the police report, the man admitted to having had about 18 beers.
An initial breath test showed a blood-alcohol level of 0.29 percent, more than three times the legal limit.
Bieber said both arrests were counted as a first offense because the man hadn’t yet been convicted in connection with the first arrest.
Bieber said the first offense OWI citations would have been around $550 each, but would have been about $600 to $700 with other costs added in.
Bieber said it was unusual to have someone go out and commit the same offense after having just been released, but added there was little that could have been done to prevent it.
“Like anything else, they can just go out and do it again,” he said.
Bieber said the man had a previous conviction in 2008, but state law counts only those convictions that occur within the last four years as a second offense.
OWI convictions in Wisconsin don’t become felonies until the fourth offense within a four-year period.