WIRE FOUND STRUNG ACROSS ROAD

Electrical contractor Ken Risling was doing repair work on a house on Eddie Lane in Sebastopol on Tuesday when two women walked up and asked if he knew anything about "this wire."

A bare, steel wire had been strung from a tree trunk on one side of Eddie Lane to a tree branch on the other side, about "neck high," said Risling, the owner of Risling Electric in Santa Rosa.

Risling, who cut the cable down and called the police, said the cable was likely strung up not long before it was noticed, because the road frequently gets car, foot and bike traffic.

"People had been going by there every 15 minutes," he said.

Officers took the wire in as evidence, but police have few leads, Sebastopol Police Chief Jeff Weaver said.

"Thankfully, nobody was injured," Weaver said. "It certainly could have been serious."

-- Martin Espinoza