A wanted parolee was arrested on September 8 after he allegedly nearly struck a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy with his truck and then stole a girl’s pink bicycle in an escape attempt, a sheriff’s sergeant said.
The sheriff’s office received a call around 4:30 p.m. that the parolee, Alexander Edwards, 36, was at a home in the 19500 block of Cypress Lane in Sonoma, sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Crum said.
As deputies were planning how to arrest Edwards, who had fled several times in the past, Edwards allegedly sped past them in a Ford Ranger and narrowly missed a deputy who had pressed himself against his patrol car, Crum said.
Edwards smashed his truck on an embankment at Petaluma Avenue and Arnold Drive and ran onto the property of the Faith Lutheran Church of Sonoma Valley on Arnold Drive. A deputy in pursuit lost sight of Edwards, but neighbors called the sheriff’s Sonoma Valley substation and reported Edwards fled the area on a girl’s pink bicycle, Crum said.
Edwards showed up on the bike at the Starling Bar at 19380 state Highway 12 near West Spain Street, where he asked for a ride and said his wife was having a baby, Crum said. He then left the bar on the bike and was seen by a neighbor on Junipero Serra Drive in Sonoma.
A deputy spotted the abandoned bicycle in the 700 block of Fano Drive and deputies started a door-to-door search, Crum said. They found a broken fence and an unlocked door to a residence where a 12-year-old girl said a man took her phone and was in her parents’ bedroom.
Deputies found Edwards hiding in the attic above the bedroom with his feet dangling out of the attic door. Edwards refused to leave the attic but was shot with a Taser stun gun and taken into custody.
Edwards was arrested and booked into Sonoma County Jail under $200,000 bail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon on an officer, evading arrest, burglary, robbery, child cruelty and petty theft, Crum said.
Edwards is scheduled to be arraigned in Sonoma County Superior Court on September 11 afternoon.
Deputies found the owner of the pink bicycle and ordered a basket and lock for the girl’s bike.
By James Lanaras.
