Police Blotter: Distraught woman collapses in busy street

A woman who said she tried to commit suicide by electrocuting herself in the bathtub, and then by ingesting a large amount of pain medicine, was found sprawled in the middle of West Spain Street near Seventh Street. “I want to die,” she told police when they arrived on the scene at about 11 a.m. on October 30. The distraught woman, 45, lived nearby in squalid conditions. The house was full of garbage, police said, and faulty wiring and a potential gas leak lead to the structure being condemned. In the bathroom, police found the bathtub full of water with an hair drier, plugged in to the electric socket, nearby. There were traces of wet footprints leading to the street where the woman was found. She was taken to the hospital, and then referred for a psychological evaluation.

Riding high

Police keeping an eye on suspicious doings along Lomita Avenue made two drug busts on October 27. A 22-year-old El Verano man was stopped for riding his bicycle in the wrong direction. On probation, the man was subject to a police search, which yielded a meth pipe and small amount of drug residue. Later, another errant cyclist, also on probation, met a similar fate. The Sonoma man, 26, was found to be carrying a hypodermic needle and .6 of a gram of meth.

Drunk of the Week

A woman who smashed her Honda into a tree and yelled to neighbors “not to call the cops” was nonetheless busted for her drunken antics on October 27. The woman, 27, out of Bakersfield, caused major damage to her car and blew out both front tires when she piloted her rig into two olive trees, glancing off a parked car in the process, at about 8:40 p.m. “I didn’t do that,” she said of the damage. When asked what she was doing, the woman mumbled, “trying to get out of here.” Irrational and argumentative, the woman refused to take any sobriety tests, a stance for which she will lose her drivers license. Based on her increasing frenzy and an abnormally high heart rate, police took the woman to the hospital to check for possible drug use. She was later jailed.

You again!

A man stopped in traffic near Sonoma Plaza on the afternoon on October 26 was assaulted by an adversary who, driving by in the other direction, spotted his rival, parked his car and advanced on the victim in the 100 block of West Spain. The jealous challenger – the sticky triangle involves an ex-wife – demanded a showdown, and when the victim climbed out of his truck, hit him multiple times. The two men, both 24, had a run-in at a Sonoma bar just the night before, as well as dust-up in August. The victim’s cuts and bruises, and eyewitness accounts from startled patrons of the Roche Tasting Room, sealed a battery charge for the Eldridge man.

Sorry, wrong number

Police were summoned at 10 p.m. on October 25 when two drunken strangers, a man and woman, attempted to enter a residence in the 300 block of West Napa Street. The couple had disappeared by the time officers arrived, but their hiding place was soon detected: officers could see the faint hue of a cell phone emanating from a nearby bush. The woman, 25, from Sonoma, was lying on the ground, clothes disheveled. Intoxicated to the point of unintelligibility, she could not speak, or stand without help, and was taken to the hospital. The man, 24, from the Springs, was far feistier. He refused to give his name, and when asked what he had been drinking, replied “everything, everywhere, at every bar in this town.” He was slapped with a drunk in public charge.