Jonathan Rollstin is often unaware that a train is coming until the moment it has arrived.
Where the homeless man’s encampment is situated, trains barrel past about 50 feet away, on tracks splitting the graffiti-marred girders of a Highway 101 overpass south of the Petaluma Village Premium Outlets.
Despite the obvious dangers and prodding by police, Rollstin, 39, refuses to quit his illegal set-up.
“I want to be alone. I don’t want to be in a shelter,” he said Monday after a Petaluma police officer rousted him from his tent.
The defiance highlights the challenges of getting homeless people to abandon encampments along train tracks in Sonoma and Marin counties, a problem gaining more urgency as commuter rail service gears up to resume in the North Bay later this year....
....DeBaeke acknowledged later that he could have cited or arrested Rollstin for a number of reasons. The officer didn’t say it, but one allegation could have included suspicion of theft, after a Water Resources manager contacted police later that day after he spotted the homeless man in town wearing the jacket.
Instead, DeBaeke provided Rollstin with trash bags after again ordering him to leave the encampment. The pair then parted ways.
Petaluma police, along with their counterparts across Sonoma County, say they are starting with a softer approach in getting people moved from the tracks.
To continue reading this article by Derek Moore, go to: http://www.petaluma360.com/new...mart-tracks-petaluma
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