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Flashers exposed

Sonoma police have cited one man and are looking for another following a spate of indecent exposures on the west side of town.

The first incident occurred Friday, Sept 28, at about 9:10 p.m., when a woman shopper reported that a white man in his 50s or 60s dropped his shorts and exposed his genitals inside the West Napa Street Safeway store.

Following the exposure, the man pulled his pants back up and ran out of the store.

Less than an hour later, at approximately 10:05 p.m., police got a report from a female employee at Sonoma Market, diagonally across the street from Safeway, that a similar incident of exposure had just occurred.

The woman said she was putting away the flower display in front of the store when a white man in his 60s, wearing blue shorts, took his hands away from the waistband and they fell to the ground, exposing his genitals.

The man then pulled the shorts up and ran northbound out of the area.

Police examined surveillance footage from a store camera that captured images of the man, revealing that he actually tried to expose himself to the victim twice, but the first time she had her back to him and didn’t know he was behind her.

She went back into the store for a moment and when she came outside again, he tried a second time and finally succeeded in exposing himself.

Police then examined a surveillance video from the Safeway store that revealed the same man walking about the store, although the moment of exposure was not captured by the cameras.

The next day, three teenage girls were walking along Robinson Road when an older man wearing a white shirt and shorts walked into his open garage door, turned and dropped his shorts, exposing his genitals. The girls told police that he stood that way for “quite a while” as they walked past.

The girls went home and called the police, prompting an officer to go to the house and knock on the door.

The man in question appeared, but denied exposing himself, saying that his shorts had fallen accidentally and that he immediately tried to cover himself with a white towel.

The officer pointed out that the man was wearing a belt and it seemed unlikely that his shorts would fall of their own accord.

The victims signed a citizens arrest form and the 74-year-old man was charged with indecent exposure, cited and released.

Police subsequently returned to the man’s house with photos of the flasher from Sonoma Market and Safeway, but after comparing them to the Robinson Road suspect, they determined he had not committed the earlier indecent exposures.

Police ask that anyone with information about the Safeway/Sonoma Market suspect contact them at 996-3602.

He is described as being in his 50s or 60s, wearing blue shorts and a white T-shirt.