Officers arrested the suspect on suspicion of prowling and peeping and linked him to similar incidents in Rohnert Park and Petaluma.
A man Cotati police said followed women home and peered into their windows has been arrested on suspicion of prowling and peeping. About 2:15 a.m. May 8, Cotati police officers responded to a report of a man looking into the windows of a home on Lakewood Avenue, officials said in aOfficers detained a man in the front yard of a neighboring property.
According to authorities, he told officers he was an Uber driver dropping off a passenger and that he was attempting to return a vape device left in his vehicle. Residents of the Lakewood Avenue home confirmed they used a rideshare service earlier that night, Cotati police said, but a screenshot showed the driver was a different person with a different vehicle. Officers arrested the man on suspicion of prowling and peeping.
His name is being withheld because he has not been formally charged. Officers took a cell phone, gloves and a black face mask they said they found in the man’s possession. According to the Cotati police news release, several similar incidents have been reported in Rohnert Park and Petaluma.
Police said the Cotati and previous incidents involved a similar pattern: A man followed young women home from local bars or provided them rides home through rideshare services and later returned to the homes to peer through windows. Earlier this year, Uber launched a feature allowing both women riders and drivers to be matched with other women for trips. The new feature was rolled out after years of intense public scrutiny over the safety of ride-hailing platforms.
In February, a in a 2023 case of sexual assault and the company was ordered to pay $8.5 million to an Arizona woman who said she was raped by one of its drivers. You can reach Staff Writer Kyle Garcia Takata at kyle.garciatakata@pressdemocrat.com.
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