A Crack Policeman : Law enforcement: Chiropractor by day, reserve officer Barry Schleider takes aim at drunk drivers by night.

Barry Schleider was a bearded, long-haired emergency room technician in denim bib overalls nearly 20 years ago when a brush with law enforcement compelled him to take up the badge and a uniform.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Norwalk mistook Schleider for a robbery suspect, pinning him against his car and interrogating him as a police helicopter whirred overhead.

“I had to think of some way to be a good guy,” said Schleider, 44. “It was one of those, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’ I was scared stiff every time a cop would get on my tail.”

Schleider is now a chiropractic consultant by day who spends his nights moonlighting as a reserve officer for the Costa Mesa Police Department.

His specialty is busting drunk drivers. And on Nov. 3, Mothers Against Drunk Driving of Orange County will honor Schleider for the 230 drunk-driving arrests he made in the past year, placing him among the county’s top four arresting officers--the only reserve cop to share that honor.

“This is his passion and he’s done it in spades,” Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden said. “I’m so proud of him I could pop.”

Schleider, the father of three children, ages 15, 11 and 6, derives some of that passion from the pain he experienced when his father died of liver cancer five years ago this month. It was then he decided to dedicate himself to drunk-driving arrests, in order to make a difference in his father’s memory.

“He’s just done a terrific job,” MADD executive director Reidel Post said. “Most people could have this as their full-time job and not accomplish what he’s accomplished. He is diligent in his effort to make the road safer.”

Just months after opening his first chiropractic office in 1980, Schleider treated a reserve officer for neck pain. He was sold on the notion of becoming a part-time cop, and entered the Rio Hondo Police Academy in Whittier.

He began work that same year for the Los Alamitos Police Department, then joined the Costa Mesa force seven years ago.

Some days, he says, he feels like Superman, stripping out of his business suit and into his police uniform to embark on his other life. But Schleider, known around the department for his collection of jokes, says the police work “keeps my blood running.” It’s more of a rush than working on sore backs.

“I like the multifaceted life instead of the mundane,” he said. “What I do for a living has been really good to me, but it’s relatively mundane. A bad back’s a bad back.”

It wasn’t until his father passed away in October, 1990, however, that Schleider turned to drunk-driving arrests as his primary focus, in honor of his dad’s memory.

“Me and my dad were just unbelievably close,” Schleider said. “I was grief-stricken, just incapacitated. I decided that I had to redirect my grief and focus on something.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I can even get a century pin where I do 100 arrests in a year,’ ” Schleider said of the lapel pins that MADD bestows on officers who arrest more than 100 drunk drivers in a year.

That was five years and three century pins ago. This year, Schleider will get a double century pin from MADD, which is issuing the double pins for the first time for officers with more than 200 arrests. Two officers whose arrests topped 300 for the 1994-95 year will receive triple century pins at the Nov. 3 awards ceremony.

Schleider was drawn to the DUI arrests because they never send him on an “emotional roller coaster” ride like dealing with domestic disputes or the homeless. The drunk-driving arrests serve everyone--the driver, the public and the police, he said.

“There’s no questioning,” he said. “You did it. You pay for it.”

Schleider is on patrol 20 hours a week--the maximum for reserve officers--usually on night shifts. He also works as a chiropractic consultant, lecturing, conducting workplace seminars and seeking out patients for chiropractic clinics. He coaches his son’s Little League team and squeezes in time for his daughter’s piano recitals. That often leaves about four hours’ sleep a night.

Last April, he sold his two chiropractic practices after 15 years, winning the freedom to embark on less-restricting consulting work.

His expertise as a chiropractic doctor has helped him testify in court on some cases involving a drunk driver’s stance while performing sobriety tests, and while on patrol one night he used his medical training to save an elderly woman who choked on Mexican food during a family outing.

One drunk-driving suspect refused to perform a sobriety test when Schleider pulled her over, saying her back problem prevented her from doing it and demanding that he get a chiropractor to the scene “right now” to evaluate her.

Schleider said he and his partner eyed one another with knowing smirks, but he held his tongue.

“I never tell anybody. I don’t like to mix,” he said. “I had a patient once say, ‘I saw a cop the other day who looked exactly like you,’ and I said, ‘Oh yeah! That’s my twin brother.’ ”

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Profile: Barry Schleider Age: 44 Family: Wife, Doris; children Vanessa, 15, Brian, 11, and Heather, 6 Occupation: Chiropractic consultant; Costa Mesa senior reserve police officer Education: Associate of arts degree, Cerritos College; doctor of chiropractic, Cleveland Chiropractic College, Los Angeles, 1979; Rio Hondo Police Academy, Whittier, 1980 Attitude: “I like the multifaceted life instead of the mundane. What I do for a living has been really good to me, but it’s relatively mundane. A bad back’s a bad back. This [reserve police duty] keeps my blood running.”

Source: Barry Schleider; Researched by LEE ROMNEY/Los Angeles Times