4 arrested, 5 elude police in home-invasion spree
Five people eluded capture Monday after allegedly robbing at least three marijuana grow houses in the North Bay and setting off a nearly sevenhour manhunt in Novato. Authorities suspect the heists are part of an out-of-state crime invasion focused on California’s lucrative cannabis industry.
At about 3 a.m. Monday, officers were dispatched to the 100 block of Eugenia Drive in Petaluma after reports of nine invaders breaking down the doors of at least three homes, reportedly looking for marijuana, Novato police said.
The suspects fled the scene of the robberies before leading police on a chase that ended near the 700 block of San Marin Drive in Novato, police said. Residents in the vicinity of the old Fireman’s Fund and in the Wood Hollow neighborhood were asked to stay indoors and report anything suspicious.
Four people were arrested Monday, police said,
but an extensive search for the remaining five suspects — four men and one woman — ended with authorities lifting the shelter-in-place alert and saying the suspects had probably left the area.
The robberies early Monday morning bear a striking resemblance to two home invasions Feb. 8 in Santa Rosa that left one man dead, said Misti Harris of the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office. Those incidents were also linked to people targeting residential marijuana grows, authorities said.
“It’s a product in demand throughout the United States, and here it’s legal and easier to grow and obtain, and it’s not legal throughout much of the rest of the nation,” Harris said.
At least one homeowner was tied up and pistol-whipped Monday, police said. Two vehicles seen fleeing the area reportedly refused to stop when officers attempted to initiate traffic stops.
The suspects led officers on a chase to Novato, where police say they abandoned their vehicles. One white rental minivan was left behind on Highway 101 near the San Marin exit, Harris said, while another was left behind in a Costco parking lot.
A coordinated effort between the Novato and Petaluma police departments, as well as the Sonoma County Sheriff ’s Office, used helicopters, SWAT teams and foot patrols to search for the suspects, who were not identified. But all of the suspects in Monday’s crime spree are from elsewhere in the country, Harris said.
In February, two violent home invasions carried out by five suspects — some of whom were from the East Coast — were carried out to steal guns and cannabis. In one of the robberies, Jose Luis Torres, 54, was shot and killed inside his Santa Rosa home. Four suspects were arrested after those invasions and one woman fled the scene. It’s unclear if that woman was involved in Monday’s crime spree.
The suspects were residents of Mississippi, New York and Virginia.
While cannabis became legal at the start of the year for adults 21 and over in California, only nine states in total — as well as Washington D.C. — have signed off on recreational marijuana, which remains a Schedule 1 drug illegal under federal law.
“The product is still in demand everywhere,” Harris said, “so that conflict between state and federal laws is challenging.”