Smith: Save a Chihuahua on Santa Rosa Avenue and get a jaywalking ticket

There was a Chihuahua running between cars on Santa Rosa Avenue, near the Costco. Not good.

Spotting the tiny dog in great danger, Harley Lipitz pulled off the Avenue, parked and began waving to alert drivers to the hazard. He and a second good Samaritan managed to get the dog where it belonged, in one of the trailers in a park across from the Costco center.

Then he had to get himself safely back across the busy street. He walked to Baker, waited for the signal to turn green and crossed - right in front of a stopped motorcycle officer he assumes had watched him corral the imperiled dog.

Lipitz, who's 68 and a former U.S. Marshal, said the policeman asked him, “Do you see a crosswalk?”

Lipitz conceded there was not a crosswalk where he crossed, and explained he'd just tried to cross safely after rescuing the dog. The officer told him to show his ID and sit on the curb.

Passerby James Kany saw what Lipitz had done, and what was being done to him. He said he approached the officer and said, “Seriously? You're writing him up?”

Lipitz contends being issued a jaywalking ticket was bad enough, but the officer was also unnecessarily rude and aggressive. He has filed a complaint with the Santa Rosa Police Department.

Police Capt. Ray Navarro said on Wednesday Lipitz's complaint about the officer's conduct will be investigated.

As for the allegation the officer watched the rescue of the dog and then cited the rescuer, Navarro said the saving of the Chihuahua and the writing of the ticket for crossing without a crosswalk were “two completely different incidents.”

The motorcycle officer had not seen the shepherding of the dog out of harm's way, Navarro said.

He observed also that three pedestrians have been struck and killed on city streets this year. The most recent car-versus-pedestrian fatality occurred just earlier this month, also on Santa Rosa Avenue.

“It is something we do have to deal with,” Navarro said.

Whatever happens with Lipitz's jaywalking ticket and the officer who wrote it, all are happy the Chihuahua got home in one piece.

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A KID IN WINDSOR looked to be in a bad way back before Christmas, so a concerned citizen dialed 911 and asked that authorities look in on him.

Deputies Ryan Patrick and Greg Bone found the 10-year-old living in a car with his mother. The boy was in dire need of a shower, and he could clearly use a decent meal.

His mother, Victoria Taneyhill, told the deputies she'd gotten a job but wasn't yet able to afford a place for the two of them to live.

Patrick and Bone did not tell them good luck, be safe and leave them.

The deputies took Taneyhill and her son, Kaden, to a hotel and reached into their own pockets to pay for it. They drove then to the nearby Safeway and bought Kaden and his mom some good food.

The deputies didn't go blowing their own horn but colleagues heard about they did. Fellow members of the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff's Association went online to open a GoFundMe appeal for the Taneyhills.

When I checked it, the mother and son were about $7,300 closer to being able to afford to rent a home.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.