Police: Petaluma stalking suspect had stolen, illegal guns

Petaluma police announced they discovered a stolen revolver and an illegal assault rifle among the guns found at a rural property on Saturday, part of their investigation of a man who admitted to damaging his ex-girlfriend’s car and who allegedly brandished a revolver during a subsequent confrontation at her back door.

A Petaluma Police Department SWAT team searched the property on the 3000 block of Eastman Lane on Nov. 5, a large unincorporated area where police said 58-year-old Scott Aaron Smith lives with several people. Smith was in custody at the time after admitting to detectives that he had vandalised the woman’s car, and the search found him to be in illegal possession of a loaded AK-47 assault rifle, a high-capacity magazine and a loaded, large-caliber revolver reported stolen from Lake County in 2012, according to police.

Several older rifles and shotguns belonging to the suspect were also seized, police said.

Police said Smith smashed into his ex-girlfriend’s car with his truck while it was parked on the street in front of her residence on Rio Vista Way in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, and then punctured two of its tires with a knife. He allegedly returned to the victim’s house late in the following evening and brandished a revolver while confronting her at her back door.

Petaluma detectives contacted Smith by phone after a day of surveillance and follow-up investigation, and the suspect agreed to meet at police headquarters for an interview on Oct. 30. It was then that he admitted to the vandalism of the car, according to the department’s news release.

Smith faces charges of alleged vandalism, stalking, possession of stolen property, possession of an assault weapon, possession of a high-capacity magazine and possession of firearms while subject to a restraining order, according to police. He was in custody at the Sonoma County Jail on Monday on $100,000 bail, according to jail records.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com.)