2007: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

A year of animal tales -- but hey, it’s Petaluma

A pregnant horse on the Web, pot-bellied pigs in your neighborhood, cockroaches in the sewers — are you reading this in the checkout line?

Top: Bill and Angelique Fry play with one of their four pot-bellied pigs. Lower left: Suerte the pregnant mare. Lower right: Bonnie Cromwell holds Annie the alligator. Zoom Photo

And we didn’t even have “Rat Man” to kick around this year.

Check that — the infamous rodent hoarder left Petaluma back in early January, after illegally tying up his boat at Foundry Wharf and being discovered with 37 rats and several cats.

Now, 37 is nowhere close to the 1,300 Roger Dier had in 2006, but he’d been ordered to keep no more than four rats, separated by sex.

He was cited for animal cruelty before sailing down the river — and into Petaluma history.

However, there were other animal tales that filled the spotlight the rest of the year — and lots of Petalumans getting their 15 minutes of fame, as well as rude, crude and even nude dudes in the news.

So here’s our look back at the stranger side of 2007.

Animal antics

After Dier made his exit, it was a quiet spring on the animal front — until a pregnant Petaluma horse started an Internet following as her delivery date neared.

Suerte the red mare was a star on marestare.com, a sort of MySpace for horse birthing. As her due date came and went, the suspense built up, with messages and phone calls coming to owner Genevieve Ghilotti from Africa, Europe and nearly every state in the union.

Finally, on the last day of March, Suerte gave birth to Ransom — so named because his pending delivery held fans hostage to their computer screens.

As summer came, an “animals involved” controversy over the Lucchesi Park pond arose when the city decided to ban fishing there, partly for the sake of the ducks.

It seems the feathered fowl were getting tangled in fishing line and injured by the hooks, so the animal shelter proposed an end to fishing.

However, that didn’t sit well with fishermen, so a compromise was worked out — the city put in more receptacles for depositing used line and hooks, as well as signs explaining fishing rules.

So far the plan seems to have worked out for all involved — well, except maybe the fish.

In August, Petaluma became the perfect place for rest and recuperation when an 8-pound alligator, “Annie,” was found on the banks of the Sacramento River in Contra Costa County.

Petaluman Bonnie Cromwell, owner of Classroom Safari and a board member of two local wildlife rescue groups, took in the 40-inch creature to care for it while a permanent home is sought.

At last report, Cromwell was hoping the search wouldn’t take more than a year — because alligators can grow up to 1,500 pounds.

Later that same month, Petaluma360.com “shock blogger” Frank Simpson uncovered dozens of cockroaches crawling out of a storm drain at Magnolia Avenue and Petaluma Boulevard North.

Experts consulted by the Argus-Courier said the creatures weren’t posing any harm, though the sight of cockroaches in the daytime could be a sign of a large infestation. The city said maintenance crews would handle the problem.

This fall, a happier animal tale arrived — a city order that an east Petaluma couple get rid of their four pot-bellied pigs because of a zoning technicality was swiftly rescinded when the owners and their supporters appeared before the City Council in October.

And no, the pigs themselves did not appear at the podium — though one did show up at City Hall 15 years ago and helped make a “persuasive” case then that the critters be allowed in most homes in the city.

Not-so-smooth criminals

Petaluma couldn’t even get through the first week of 2007 without a bizarre crime story. A man fleeing from the cops might have caught a break when pursuing patrol cars ran over the spike strips other officers put down to stop the perp.

However, whatever advantage he might have gained was short-lived, since he was apprehended after crashing his car into the Washoe House on Stony Point Road.

Also in January, a 15-year-old boy faced five charges and probably learned some lessons from Criminal Activity 101: If you’re going to steal your dad’s car and drive it without a license, don’t draw attention to yourself by smoking marijuana and fighting with your girlfriend inside it. Also, don’t do it in the middle of a school day, when you draw the attention of school resource officers looking for truants.

And in the last week of the month, a series of strange attacks involving one family took place.

It started when two feuding 17-year-old girls got into a confrontation on Ely Boulevard South — and ended with a baseball bat attack on a car, the batter subsequently run over by a speeding truck, and an 18-pound rock thrown through a car window in Penngrove.

Oh, and along the way there were hospitalizations, arrests and charges of obstructing officers. If only “Cops” had been filming.

This spring saw a man trying to buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of gift cards at a grocery store, suspicious in itself, but the bad check he tried to pass cemented his fate.

And a wanted man tried to steal a trailer on Lakeville Street, but in this digital age the victim captured his photo, which police matched to the all-points-bulletin from an earlier burglary that same evening.

In May, another wanted man refused to answer the door for police, but rather than flee, he thought he’d be carefully concealed beneath a pile of dirty laundry. He was wrong.

In June, a Petaluma man apparently didn’t get the memo about what you can and can’t take in your carry-on luggage — he was stopped at a Salt Lake City airport security checkpoint for having a lighter in his bag.

Of course, that prompted security to inspect further, finding a glass pipe they thought was used for smoking crack cocaine (the man politely corrected them that no, it was actually a meth pipe).

But that’s not all — investigators pulled his checked luggage out and found sex toys and 46 DVDs of sexual videos, many containing child pornography.

Back in Petaluma that same month, a teen boy made a serious bid for “dumb criminal of the year” when he grabbed an iPod off the belt of a woman holding a baby at 24-Hour Fitness in the Great Petaluma Mill.

The victim — baby in arms — gave chase, but the teen jumped a fence and got away. However, since he had to sign in to get inside the members-only gym, the victim ID’d the perp’s membership photo, and police caught up with him at his home.

Also this summer: A wanted parolee refused to come out of hiding in the bushes, but he was kind enough to stand up so officers could see him — and also Taser him when he started to run away.

This fall, two men parked outside the Ross store at Petaluma Plaza learned that if you’re going to shoplift 100 items of clothing during repeated trips inside a store, it’s not a good idea to draw attention to yourself by changing clothes next to your vehicle in the parking lot.

In October, a Petaluma man who had stolen an amplifier and offered it for sale on Craigslist had a relative meet the potential buyer to complete the transaction. But police knew the amp had been stolen, so they sent in a decoy to pose as the interested purchaser.

They then learned from the man inside that the amp had actually been stolen by his relative — who was easy to find because he had arranged the sale from his cell at the county lockup.

And then there’s this little nugget: A year ago, a man was busted for trying to send pot through the mail in a package of coffee beans. It seems the word didn’t get around, though, and last month a large west Petaluma marijuana-growing operation was uncovered after another guy tried the weed-by-mail trick.

Rude, crude and nude

Other cities have serial killers. Petaluma only has a “serial toilet vandal” at Walnut Park.

Back in March, the city’s parks department said the unknown vandal had targeted the park’s restrooms for months — shoving cans and tennis balls down the toilet and causing repair bills to pile up. As of this writing, the perpetrator hasn’t been flushed out.

In May, a dog bit a man outside of Peet’s Coffee downtown — they say that’s not news, right? But the pup’s owner didn’t feel like sticking around and taking responsibility — he quickly apologized and then left the scene, leaving the victim with a significant hand puncture.

In July, a man denied entrance to a house party decided to brandish a handgun to show his disappointment — ironically, ruining the very party he was trying to join. He didn’t go very far after leaving, so the cops easily caught him.

That month another man decided to take advantage of the warm summer sun and strolled leisurely along the railroad tracks near Southpoint Boulevard. Were it not for the fact that he wasn’t wearing any clothes and had reportedly masturbated in front of a woman and her children, police might have let him enjoy the rest of his walk.

In August, some poor guy learned that in addition to inspiring, surprising and delighting us, art can hurt. He had just kicked a former friend out of his house when the ex-friend grabbed a stone sculpture and began chasing and beating him with it.

All that running about must have tired the suspect out, however, because he wasn’t any farther than the front seat of his nearby car when police found him.

Also in August, two drivers involved in a fender bender on Frates Road got out to begin exchanging information. But when the guy who wasn’t at fault called police to report the incident, the other driver flipped out, demanded he hang up, then stole the memo pad the victim had been writing on and fled in his car.

The victim wasn’t fazed — he got in his own vehicle, followed the guy and continued his call to police — who later arrested the hit-and-run driver at his home.

In September, a transient was apprehended after walking into two eastside homes, helping himself to the liquor cabinet and the beer in the fridge, then lighting up a cigarette and using the bathroom. The unusual behavior particularly alarmed the two children home alone at one of the houses.

The rest of the year was fairly quiet — oh, except for that whole did-he-or-didn’t-he mooning incident involving a Petaluma girls soccer coach.

Only in Petaluma ...

... would a man declare himself emperor of the town, don a cape and hat and apply for a vacant City Council seat (January).

... would concerned citizens get decked out in diving masks, snorkels and fins to walk around downtown and highlight the expected impact of global warming on our tidally influenced river (April).

... would the streets flow with “udder” goodness after a dairy truck leaks 4,000 gallons of milk on its way through town (April).

... would a hard-to-control fire not burn through brush or timber, but decomposing grain pellets that spewed a nasty cloud of stink over the downtown for nine days (August).

... would a 69-year-old SoCal woman be so impressed by our local sticker factory that she’d miss a taxi, hoof it three miles to catch the bus, miss that bus, finally get on the train and arrive in Petaluma some 14 hours after her day began (August).

... would a spat between city officials lead a councilman to call the Airport Commission “rich old guys with airplanes” (September).

... would an innocuous disco ball hanging in the Phoenix Theater pick the night of the big Halloween party to come crashing down after two decades of otherwise harmless illumination (October).

We can’t wait to see what 2008 holds for you, Petaluma.

(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)