GUNMEN STORM PETALUMA HOME, STEAL MEDICAL POT

Medical marijuana may have been the loot sought by two robbers, who held
the occupants of a Petaluma home at gunpoint late Friday night, while they
uprooted a dozen or so plants that a resident of the house had been growing
for pain relief.

Police have arrested Richard James McClean, 21, and David Delasantos, 22,
on charges of robbery, burglary, false imprisonment and unlawful
destruction of phone lines in the holdup. While there were two residents
and three guests in the house, including a 9-year-old and a 10-year-old,
everyone escaped injury. The crime unfolded shortly before midnight Friday,
when two intruders entered an unlocked door of a Bond Avenue home and
herded the five occupants into a room at gunpoint. The robbers then cut the
phone lines with a knife - apparently to prevent the occupants from calling
for help - and began uprooting a bunch of medical marijuana plants that
were growing at the house.

After uprooting the marijuana plants, which ranged from 3 inches to 3 feet
in size, the men fled with the drug, running toward a nearby reservoir.

Within 15 minutes of the crime, police had arrested McClean, a Petaluma
resident, who police say has a history of gang involvement. Later,
Delasantos was arrested after neighbors reported seeing him at a nearby gas
station.

Police also recovered the uprooted marijuana plants, which had been dropped
nearby, and found a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol and what they
believe is the suspects' getaway car.

The three adults who were held at gunpoint in the house were identified as
Robert Schmidt, 48, Gary Rubeck, 42, and Sydney Ford, 32. It was not clear
whether they or the children lived in the house.

Police said the drug apparently falls under a state exemption for marijuana
plants grown for medicinal use, because one of the residents of the house
is a caregiver who grows it for people who use it under doctors'
recommendations. Neighbors of the house complained that there have been
numerous problems with people trying to break in and steal the medical
marijuana plants in the past.

Richard Teel, who lives up the street from the house, said he and other
neighbors were so upset about the potential for break-ins and crime
surrounding the medical marijuana garden that they went to the City Council
to ask them to establish a policy regulating the growth of marijuana. "We
actually have people climbing our fence to steal their marijuana," said
Michelle Norton, another neighbor. "We don't mind medical marijuana. We
just don't want it in a residential neighborhood."