Bret Harte Neighbor's Dog Helps Police Nab Car Prowlers

Two Novato men were arrested in San Rafael this weekend on suspicion of prowling and attempted petty theft after a barking dog brought a resident’s attention to the men as they were checking vehicles for unlocked doors.

A San Rafael resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said his dog Riley woke him up early on Sunday morning. He said he looked down his street in San Rafael’s Bret Harte neighborhood and saw a person trying to open car doors. “Down the block was another person wearing a hoodie,” the resident wrote to Patch in an e-mail. He called 911 right away.

San Rafael Police officers arrived in the area around 3:25 a.m. and contacted two men on Glenaire Drive. The officers noticed a car had been rifled through and arrested Novato resident Michael Martinez, 18, and 27-year-old Demetrius Jefferson, of Novato, San Rafael police spokeswoman Margo Rohrbacher said.

Later that day, San Rafael Officer Ronda Reese returned to the neighborhood after 10 a.m. to recover a stolen car that was tracked to Glenaire via the police department's license plate scanning system. The car, a burgundy Acura, was stolen from Novato early on Sunday morning. Inside the car was a Novato woman's purse, which has been stolen from a different Novato car the same evening, according to Rohrbacher.

Whie the Novato men aren’t facing any additional charges for the stolen car or its stolen contents, Rohrbacher said “it certainly was suspicious” the vehicle was found just down the street from where the men were arrested. “We’ll be continuing to do follow up with the Novato police [on the two men],” she said.