Chris Smith: Santa Rosa sergeants drop coffee talk to nab a suspect

All four men seated around a table near the front window at a Santa Rosa coffeehouse were police officers, though not obviously.

They're detective sergeants who work alongside and oversee several units of plain-clothed investigators. The sergeants meet once a week to discuss cases and budgetary or personnel issues, the sort of stuff supervisors talk about.

Through the café window, one or two or more of them notice a guy who's wandering among the cars parked out front. He turns abruptly and walks to a rented moving truck, and drives off.

Minutes later, he reappears on foot. He stops at what happens to be the unmarked car assigned to one of the sergeants. He peers into a side window.

What's he doing? Checking his hair in the reflection?

In an flash, the sergeants' interest spikes. The man's now holding something in his hand: A large screwdriver.

What a surprise he's in for.

The sergeants who hopped up, ran out and chased down 27-year-old Vincent Rathe found that he'd left the truck engine running, presumably to get away fast with whatever he might steal after breaking into a car. A records check revealed that Rathe is on probation and is named in arrest warrants related to thefts.

Inside the truck box, police said, were several thousand dollars worth of copper pipe fittings and other plumbing and electrical materials believed stolen from job sites.

For cops to sit and talk at a coffeehouse rather than back at the station, that's a good thing.

NUN FOR ALL: Three of the gay and straight men and women of the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence had jaws dropping at Sonoma County's Regional Parks office.

It wasn't their outrageous habits and makeup but what they carried: A game-show sized check for $10,200.

In April the relentlessly charitable Sisters hosted a seafood dinner in Guerneville specifically for the benefit of Bodega Bay commercial fishermen struggling with the painfully delayed start of Dungeness crab season.

“It was a blast. Everybody was so generous,” said Sister Sparkle Plenty, who when out of costume and character goes by the name Jim Longacre.

The money raised will allow the county to extend the waiver of berthing fees normally collected from the fishermen. Earlier this year, the fees were covered by donations from a host of angels and by the proceeds of a benefit concert in Petaluma by west county fisherman and Primus musician Les Claypool.

In all, the Sisters and the musicians and the others kicked in close to $30,000 to help the fishermen.

You know, this sort of thing doesn't happen just anywhere.

JOINING JOAN LUNDEN in the Rose Parade that steps off in Santa Rosa at 12:15 p.m. Saturday will be a couple hundred fellow cancer survivors.

One is Don Stranathan. He dealt with stage IV lung cancer when he met and fell in love with Penny Blume, who struggled with the same diagnosis.

They'd had two and a half happy years together when Penny died in Santa Rosa early in 2014. Don keeps his promises to her by living his life to the fullest and pushing for a cure.

He'd love to meet Lunden, the parade grand marshal, former “Good Morning America” host and cancer survivor, and say hi to her for Penny.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.