Pet rabbit among ‘spate of burglaries’ in Petaluma neighborhood

Who stole Snowy the bunny?

That’s the question Petaluma police, local residents and a young girl are asking themselves after a wave of burglaries in an east side neighborhood Monday culminated in the theft of a pet rabbit from its backyard cage.

Described by police as “a series of burglaries in the Cerro Sonoma and South Gate neighborhoods,” the incident, which occurred in the early morning hours of Monday, Aug. 26, involved “more than 10 reports of vehicle burglaries,” police said, and involved a variety of items including cash, IDs, earpieces and other devices, a compound bow and two BB guns.

But for Ben and Nicoleta Philpot, none of the stolen items were more precious than their daughter’s pet rabbit, Snowy.

Remi, 6, “is devastated that her rabbit was stolen,” Nicoleta Philpot said in an email to the Argus-Courier.

“We’ve been posting everywhere, making police reports, hoping that by some miracle someone will recognize the individuals or come across a rabbit that may have been left outside or abandoned in the wild,” she said. “We suspect it may have been wandering around and may not live too far away.”

The concerned mother added: “There is a lot of video footage, we have quite a bit ourselves of two young men going through people’s cars, breaking windows, looking in mailboxes and going into backyards.”

The surveillance footage, collected by Ben Philpot and posted on YouTube, shows two suspects, their faces covered, going through the family’s mailbox and car doors around 4:20 a.m. Monday. Then, “after walking through our backyard, they noticed we had a large rabbit enclosure, probably because they scared the rabbits,” Nicoleta Philpot said, “and one of them reached in and grabbed one of them and walked away with it.”

Police said the other burglaries involved locked and unlocked cars, and some vehicles had their windows smashed. In one case, the suspects used a garage door opener to enter a resident’s garage and rummage through cabinets.

“There were over six reports made to police in my neighborhood between Frates and Casa Grande, and over 10 reports made that same night in the Southgate neighborhood across Ely Street,” Nicoleta Philpot said.

Police are asking anyone with possible information about the robberies, or who may recognize the two suspects, to contact investigators at 707-778-4372.