WOODLAND — The case of a West Sacramento police officer charged with sexual assault, kidnapping and other crimes will go to trial in September.

Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg scheduled Sergio Alvarez’s anticipated monthlong trial to begin on Sept. 23. Alvarez, 37, has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he kidnapped and raped six women on West Sacramento’s West Capitol Avenue over a yearlong period while he was on duty.

The Yolo County Grand Jury issued a 35-count indictment in the case in February, bypassing the need for a preliminary hearing in which a judge rules whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.

Alvarez is due back in court May 23 for a status conference and review of the proposed questionnaire attorneys plan to present to potential jurors. He remains in jail custody in lieu of $26.3 million bail.

The California Highway Patrol is seeking witnesses to a Tuesday morning collision on Interstate 80 that left two people hospitalized.

Officer Bryan Konvalin said a 2000 Jeep Cherokee Laredo driven by 19-year-old Paige Hopkins of Sacramento ran off eastbound I-80 east of Mace Boulevard and struck a tree shortly after 11:30 a.m. Both Hopkins and her passenger, Sacramento resident Gerald Kendrix Jr., 23, were taken to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento with minor injuries.

Konvalin said Hopkins was driving on a suspended license at the time of the crash, the cause of which remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to call Officer J. Rodriguez at 530-662-4685.

Authorities in Yolo County responded to two separate stabbings Wednesday — one involving a citizen who tried to detain a burglary suspect, the other near a Woodland school campus.
Yolo County sheriff’s deputies arrested a 21-year-old Woodland man on attempted murder and other charges in connection with the burglary incident, which occurred in the Wild Wings housing subdivision west of Woodland, sheriff’s spokesman Mark Persons said Thursday.
According to Persons, a resident of the 32000 block of Mallard Street arrived home at about 2:15 p.m. and heard voices inside the residence. As the resident left the home to seek help from a neighbor, two people were seen fleeing from the rear of the home.
As a man and woman fled the scene in a white vehicle — possible an Oldsmobile or Buick — a third person, identified as Royce Allen Johannes, ran from the area on foot. A citizen gave chase and allegedly was stabbed in the side by Johannes, who also reportedly used a stun gun on a second citizen who pursued him, Persons said.
Both victims and a third person eventually were able to subdue Johannes and detain him until deputies arrived on scene, Persons said. The stabbing victim was transported to the UC Davis Medical Center with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Johannes was arrested and lodged at the Yolo County Jail on suspicion of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary, Persons said. The other two suspects remained at large.
Woodland police say they are still seeking the suspects in the second stabbing incident, which happened shortly before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday in the 100 block of West Beamer Street, near the Woodland High School campus.
Sgt. Aaron Delao said officers arrived to find a 26-year-old man suffering from a single stab wound to his right tricep. He told officers he was standing in front of his home when five or six men ran at him from the high school student parking lot, yelling obscenities.
The victim turned to run into his home and, when he got inside, noticed the stab wound. The suspects, identified only as Latino male adults, ran back toward the student parking lot and drove away in a dark-colored pickup.
Delao said the victim transported himself to the hospital for treatment of his injury.
Anyone with information about the suspects in this case is asked to contact the Woodland Police Department at 530-666-2411.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

Police are investigating the apparent assault of a 26-year-old man early Friday morning in downtown Davis.

Davis police Lt. Glenn Glasgow said police and medical personnel were summoned at about 2:10 a.m. to the 200 block of G Street, where the victim was found lying in the street unconscious, with “various injuries.”

“Although there was a large crowd of people gathered around him, no one came forward to provide information about how he sustained his injuries,” Glasgow said in a news release. “There is some evidence he is the victim of an assault; however, that has not yet been confirmed.”

The man was transported to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento for treatment. Glasgow said anyone who may have witnessed this incident, or who has information on how this person was injured, is urged to call the Davis Police Department at 530-747-5400.

A collision involving a motorcyclist and a small horse Friday morning ended badly for both, according to the Davis Fire Department.

Spokeswoman Evelyn George said the crash occurred at about 5:45 a.m. in the area of County Roads 99 and 29 west of Davis. The horse — possibly a pony — died at the scene, while the motorcyclist was taken to Kaiser Hospital in Vacaville with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The accident is being investigated by the California Highway Patrol.

One man was arrested and a second remains at large following an attempted residential burglary in Woodland late Thursday night.

Woodland police were called to the 1600 block of Farnham Avenue at 11:20 p.m. after a resident reported she had interrupted two men who were removing window screens and shattering a dual-pane rear window.

The suspects fled and a neighbor gave chase, police said, with one of the suspects swinging a knife at the neighbor. The suspect was described as a 20-year-old Hispanic male, 5 feet, 6 inches tall, with a thin build. He was last seen running westbound on Farnham Avenue at Laugenour Drive.

Officers detained a second subject who a witness identified as one of the two seen breaking into the residence.

Ernesto Justin Negrete, 19, was arrested and charged with attempted residential burglary, committing a felony while released from custody and one count of misdemeanor vandalism.

The armed suspect who fled is still at large. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Woodland Police Department at 530-661-7800.

Relatives say it was a married couple in their 70s and 80s who were the victims of what’s being investigated as a double homicide case in South Davis.

Yolo County coroner’s officials have not yet released the names of the couple, whose bodies were discovered at about 9:20 p.m. Sunday after their daughter called the Davis Police Department to request a welfare check.

However, family members have confirmed the couple were Oliver “Chip” Northup Jr., 87, and 76-year-old Claudia Marie Maupin.

According to the Davis police log, the daughter had not heard from the parents all day, but had gone by the residence in the 4000 block of Cowell Boulevard and saw the car on scene and lights on in the home, one in a row of light-brown condominiums that line the south side of the street.

Information about the cause of death also has not been released. Police say there were signs of forced entry at the residence but did not elaborate.

“It’s just a disturbing thing,” said Greg Gibbs, a next-door neighbor whose home shares a wall with that of the slain couple. While Davis is not immune to violent crime, “to have one right next door, with people we know, it’s very concerning.”

Gibbs said he and his wife Pam “heard quite a bit of noise around 9:00 or so,” but later learned it was likely caused by police officers who had arrived to check on the couple. Other than that, they heard nothing unusual coming from their neighbors’ home.

Officers made contact with the Gibbses around 11:30 p.m. to advise them to stay inside their home, but it wasn’t until this morning that they learned their neighbors apparently had been murdered.

“They were very, very nice people,” Gibbs said of the couple, who had lived next door for about five years.

Gibbs, who serves as president of the board of his neighborhood association, said board members recently met with residents of Vista Way, the street directly to the south of Cowell Boulevard hit recently by several residential burglaries.

Apparently, the thieves would gain access to the homes by going onto the condominium property and jumping a fence separating the condos from the homes’ back yards.

Residents of that and other nearby streets have reported 18 home break-ins, petty thefts and grand thefts over the past three months, according to the Davis Police Department’s interactive crime map.

But whether the spate of property crimes has any connection to the homicides, police aren’t saying. No motive or suspects have been identified.

The couple’s deaths mark Davis’ first homicide case since Oct. 1, 2011, when police say James Elron Mings fatally strangled Kevin Gerard Seery in the victim’s J Street apartment in what was an apparent case of assisted suicide. Mings, who has been charged with murder, is slated to go to trial later this month.

And today’s scene is just a stone’s throw from the Clearwater Apartments — formerly the Tennis Club Apartments — where 35-year-old Dennis Edward Thrower was gunned down in the doorway of his second-floor apartment on Nov. 18, 2004.

Thrower, who also was armed, fired off his own shots before he died, striking one of his assailants, who left a blood trail through the apartment complex as he fled the scene. Eric Steven Chase Jr. is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for the crime.

For complete coverage, see Tuesday’s Davis Enterprise.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurenKeene

Yolo County and UC Davis have each paid $7,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a graduate who argued that her arrest and prosecution on suspicion of battering a campus police officer violated her civil rights.

Brienna Holmes was arrested in 2009 outside a sit-in at Mrak Hall, where students were protesting a 32 percent fee hike. She was accused of shoving and slapping UCD police Capt. Joyce Souza.

In 2010, a Yolo County jury voted 10-2 to acquit Holmes of the battery charge and split 6-6 on an accompanying count of resisting arrest, resulting in a mistrial.

Holmes’ lawsuit, filed in 2011, alleged excessive force on the part of Yolo County Sheriff’s Deputies Ryan Mez and Gary Richter, who cuffed Holmes on the hood of a police cruiser following the confrontation with Souza, as well as unreasonable seizure, malicious abuse of process and battery.

Sacramento attorney Stewart Katz stopped short of saying he or Holmes was pleased with the outcome.

“On various levels, she got screwed,” Katz said. “I think there’s some modicum of satisfaction for her. I think it would have been very difficult for her to get a unanimous verdict in her favor. A lot of the blame should go to the District Attorney’s Office, but under the law the court cited (the DA’s Office) wasn’t civilly liable.”

Sacramento attorney John Lavra, who represented the county, Mez and Richter, did not immediately return a call for comment. Said UCD spokesperson Claudia Morain in an email message, “In signing the settlement, the university made clear that it is doing so solely to put an end to this matter.”

Katz said he believed the county settled, in part, because of Facebook posts by Deputy Mez, which came to light during the litigation.

In November 2011, Mez wrote, “I hate the people I’m with. F—ing Davis people!” On another occasion, he wrote, “Going to court again. Why don’t these people take the deal … I don’t arrest the innocent!”

On Sept. 25, 2010, Mez’s status read, “Is looking to ruin somebody’s day! Anybody want to go to jail today?”

Lavra argued that Mez intended for the posts to be private and wrote them well after Holmes’ arrest. U.S. Magistrate Judge Dale Drozd ruled that they could be used during the deposition.

Though Holmes, 23, went on to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, Katz said the arrest and trial “tarnished” her campus experience.

Holmes is now working in nonprofit fundraising and Internet political strategy in her native Los Angeles. She also worked for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign as a staff employee.

Capt. Souza testified during the 2010 trial that Holmes shoved her and slapped at her arms when she instructed Holmes to move out of a pathway that was being used to escort protesters — who had been arrested on trespassing charges — from the administration building to a sheriff’s detention van.

Holmes disputed that account. She said it was Souza who shoved her first, causing her to lose her balance and fall forward. Her struggle with the two sheriff’s deputies who detained her was due to her arm being pinned underneath her body as they placed her on the hood of a patrol car, she testified.

Following the mistrial, the DA’s Office declined to retry the case and dismissed the misdemeanor charges.

Holmes’ suit stated she “suffered physical injuries, emotional distress and public humiliation” as a result of the defendants’ actions. It also alleged that the DA’s prosecution of the case cost Holmes legal fees and caused further humiliation.

The other 50 people arrested that night, most of them students, were not prosecuted.

“People blur the line between civil disobedience and protesting,” Katz said. “She was just flat-out protesting. She wasn’t involved in any civil disobedience, period. To me, it’s pretty absurd that the only person you prosecute is a person not involved in civil disobedience.”

Jonathan Raven, chief deputy district attorney, said on Monday that the DA’s Office acted correctly.

“Six jurors not only thought Ms. Holmes should have been prosecuted but also felt beyond a reasonable doubt that she was guilty,” he said in an email message. “Lack of a conviction is not the same as factual innocence. When six jurors vote for guilt, you do not have factual innocence.”

The actions of police outside of Mrak Hall “foreshadowed how inept the UC Davis Police Department was in any kind of nonviolent demonstration situation,” Katz said, referring to the Nov. 18, 2011, pepper-spraying of seated, unarmed Occupy UC Davis protesters. The university later agreed to $1 million settlement with those doused with the spray.

“There was a lesson to be learned,” Katz said. “Obviously, they didn’t learn it.”

— Enterprise staff writer Lauren Keene contributed to this report.

By Barry Eberling

FAIRFIELD — Davis police on Monday ended a 25-mile car chase along westbound Interstate 80 with an arrest on the North Texas Street/Manuel Campos Parkway offramp in Fairfield.

The incident began near Mace Boulevard and Interstate 80 in Davis. Police tried to stop a white Nissan Sentra for a suspected vehicle code violation and the driver drove off, Davis police Cpl. Trevor Edens said.

The man had been in the area of a double-homicide investigation in Davis, Davis police Lt. Paul Doroshov said. Police do not have a connection between the man and the homicide case, he said.

But the existence of that investigation led dispatchers to broadcast during the chase that the driver “may or may not be” a suspect. The chase took place shortly after 10 a.m.

During the chase, the Nissan reached speeds of 85 mph and changed lanes erratically, Edens said at the scene of the arrest. Law enforcement officials used a spike strip on the freeway to puncture the car’s tires.

The driver stopped about a mile later on the North Texas Street/Manual Campos Parkway offramp. He had no weapons and surrendered without incident, Edens said.

Police arrested Ayman Elahi, 36, of Sacramento, on suspicion of evading police officers, Doroshov said.

— Reach Barry Eberling at beberling@dailyrepublic.net

A longtime Yolo County attorney and his wife were the victims of a brutal double homicide over the weekend in their South Davis home, relatives confirmed Monday.

Police discovered the bodies of Oliver “Chip” Northup Jr., 87 — also well known as the lead singer and guitarist for the local folk band Putah Creek Crawdads — and Claudia Maupin, 76, at about 9:20 p.m. Sunday in their Cowell Boulevard condominium, according to Mary and Robert Northup, the two youngest of Oliver Northup’s six children.

Davis police Lt. Paul Doroshov said “it was clear both victims suffered stab wounds,” but their causes of death would be determined by the Yolo County coroner’s office. Autopsies were still under way as of Monday evening.

“It’s tragic that such generous and beautiful people would die violently, especially since they would have given the shirts off their backs to anyone who needed it,” Robert Northup, 54, said in an interview with The Enterprise.

The incident marks Davis’ first homicide since October 2011, sending shock waves through a community where the victims were known in religious, artistic and legal circles.

“While Davis achieves a high degree of safety through our police and the watchful eyes of all, we are not immune from terrible acts,” Mayor Joe Krovoza said in a statement offering condolences to Northup and Maupin’s families. “Let us all redouble our efforts to protect our fellow citizens and give support to those who have suffered this irreversible loss.”

According to police and relatives, it was one of Maupin’s three daughters who contacted the Davis Police Department to request a welfare check after not hearing from the couple all day Sunday, even though their car was parked at the 4006 Cowell Blvd. condo and lights appeared to be on.

Doroshov said there were signs of forced entry at the home, but wouldn’t elaborate.

He said investigators were pursuing numerous leads Monday night, with assistance from the FBI, state Department of Justice, Yolo County District Attorney and coroner’s offices, and the West Sacramento Police Department. Anyone with information is urged to call police at 530-747-5400.

No motive known

Relatives, meanwhile, say they know of no apparent motive for attacking the elderly couple inside their own home.

“Right now there’s no clue, and it’s really disconcerting. We have no idea,” said Mary Northup, 56.

Neighbors said the streets to the south of the condominiums had recently been hit with a series of residential burglaries, with thieves hopping the fence behind the condos to gain access to the homes’ back yards. Whether there’s any connection between those crimes and the murders, police aren’t saying.

However, Doroshov said the Police Department planned to deploy extra patrols throughout the city as a “preventative measure.”

“It’s just a disturbing thing,” said Greg Gibbs, a next-door neighbor whose home shares a wall with that of the slain couple. While Davis is not immune to violent crime, “to have one right next door, with people we know, it’s very concerning.”

Gibbs said he and his wife Pam “heard quite a bit of noise around 9:00 or so” on Sunday, but later learned it was likely caused by police officers who had arrived to check on the couple. Other than that, they heard nothing unusual coming from inside their neighbors’ house.

“They were very, very lovely people,” Gibbs said of Northup and Maupin, who according to online real-estate records had purchased the condo in August 2004.

A happy couple

The couple had been married since 1998 after meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, of which Northup was a charter member, Mary Northup said. The thrice-married Northup was a widower at the time, and he and Maupin were wed within a year. Both were proud parents and grandparents.

“They were very happy together,” Mary Northup said of the pair, who enjoyed good books and classic movies. “I was very happy he was able to find somebody like her.”

When they were with friends, “they just sort of enveloped you in their warmth,” said Wayne Ginsburg, a retired educator from Woodland who played with Northup in the Putah Creek Crawdads since the late 1990s. “They were the kindest, gentlest people — you just wanted to be around them.”

Maupin was a retired phone-company technician who raised three daughters, moving from Solano County to Davis upon her marriage to Northup, relatives said.

“Chip” Northup (his father dubbed him a “chip off the old block,” family said) served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and later developed an interest in the law, graduating from Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley. He started out as an appellate court clerk, but later took on the role of prosecutor — first in Sacramento, and later for the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.

He left county employment to join with three other attorneys in forming Rodegerdts, Means, Northup & Estey, a civil law firm in downtown Woodland. According to his daughter, Northup specialized in “country lawyer” work such as drawing up land agreements for local farmers.

Even after retiring from the practice in the early 1990s, Northup continued taking on criminal appellate defense work for the California Appellate Project, representing prison inmates who believed their cases deserved a second look.

“He was a person who really believed in people getting their legal rights,” Mary Northup said. “He felt like he was doing good work, that he was helping. It was his way.”

In 2011, Northup represented a teacher’s assistant at UC Davis who was arrested on suspicion of terrorist threats after using the word “bomb” in an undergraduate drama class. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue the case, and Northup successfully petitioned to get the arrest record sealed and destroyed.

Northup had met the teaching assistant through Maupin, who in 2009 had appeared with him in a UCD production of “The Elephant’s Graveyard” at the Mondavi Center, where she played the role of aging mother Esme.

Enterprise theater critic Bev Sykes praised Maupin’s performance in an October 2009 review.

“(O)ur attention is riveted on Esme, and Maupin gives her total heart and soul: We understand her bouts of depression, her moments of confusion and fear, and her delight over the time she spends with her daughter. Ultimately, we learn the most from Esme,” Sykes wrote.

Crawdads founder

Northup also was active in the arts, becoming a founding member of the Putah Creek Crawdads in 1965 after he and three fellow church members — Captane Thomson, Marc Faye and Ray Coppock — brought their instruments to a church potluck dinner.

“Pretty soon we found we all liked to play the same old-timey folk music,” said Thomson, the group’s banjoist and a longtime Davis psychiatrist. The Crawdads have been together ever since, adding new members over the years as they took their family-friendly bluegrass, gospel and Celtic music to a variety of venues.

Northup “has this magical quality of remembering lyrics to songs that he knew years ago. They would just pour out of him,” Thomson said. And although he didn’t read music, “once he learned a tune, it came right out.”

Bandmates said they last saw Northup on Saturday, when they entertained at the Davis Farmers Market. When he failed to show for two gigs on Sunday — a memorial service for former City Councilman Jerry Kaneko, and later a benefit concert in Woodland — friends and family knew something was amiss.

“It’s not like him to not show up without telling anybody,” said Robert Northup, who went by the home Sunday to find the newspapers still in the driveway. No one answered the door.

Repeated calls to both their home and cell phones also went unanswered, and that’s when Maupin’s daughter called in the police.

Mary Northup said she learned of the deaths on the news, turning on the television Monday morning to see footage of the light-brown condominium surrounded in yellow crime-scene tape.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “So I just got in my car and drove over there.”

The couple’s deaths mark Davis’ first homicide case since Oct. 1, 2011, when police say James Elron Mings fatally strangled Kevin Gerard Seery in the victim’s J Street apartment in what was an apparent case of assisted suicide. Mings, who has been charged with murder, is slated to go to trial later this month.

And Monday’s scene is just half a block from the Clearwater Apartments — formerly the Tennis Club Apartments — where 35-year-old Dennis Edward Thrower was gunned down in the doorway of his second-floor apartment on Nov. 18, 2004.

Thrower, who also was armed, fired off his own shots before he died and struck one of his assailants, who left a blood trail through the apartment complex as he fled the scene. Eric Steven Chase Jr. is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for the crime.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

As the families of a slain South Davis couple made plans Tuesday to lay their loved ones to rest, Davis police ramped up the search for their killer.

Yolo County coroner’s officials revealed that Oliver “Chip” Northup Jr., 87, and his wife of 15 years, 76-year-old Claudia Maupin, died of multiple stab wounds in their 4006 Cowell Blvd. condominium.

Police said they’ll leave no stone unturned in their quest to find the person — or people — responsible for the horrific crime, the violent nature of which has left the couple’s many friends and relatives reeling in disbelief.

“At this point, nothing’s off the table. We’re exploring all theories,” Lt. Paul Doroshov said of the ongoing investigation, which at last count involved as many as 50 sworn personnel from local, county, state and federal agencies offering assistance — particularly in the areas of forensics as well as behavioral and psychological analysis, an investigative technique also known as suspect profiling.

“We want to make sure our procedures cover all the bases as best we can for a small department,” added Landy Black, Davis’ police chief. “We have no shortage of leads, and we haven’t found that any of the potential leads are unachievable.”

Services for Northup and Maupin, a prominent local attorney and retired phone-company technician who had been married since 1998, were still in the process of being finalized Tuesday. The pair were longtime members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, of which Northup was a founding member, and it is where they first met.

Those who knew the couple have said they’re mystified that anyone would want to cause them harm.

Davis police cleared the double-homicide scene late Monday night following an extensive crime-scene investigation that began at about 9:20 p.m. Sunday, when one of Maupin’s daughters, having not heard from the couple all day, requested a welfare check at the residence that led to the discovery of their bodies.

Police disclosed early on there were signs of forced entry to the home, but continued to keep specifics about that and other aspects of the scene to themselves Tuesday in order to avoid jeopardizing the investigation.

While neighbors in the area spoke of a recent rash of residential break-ins, Doroshov said a crime scene like this one “would be very atypical for a home burglary.”

“While we’re open to all possibilities right now, we don’t have anything that says this is part of a burglary series,” he said. Although some burglars have been known to enter homes while the residents are inside — sometimes asleep, and sometimes not — they typically flee once they’ve been spotted.

“There’s been no violent confrontations so far,” Doroshov added. Still, the Police Department has deployed extra patrol officers throughout town “to enhance the safety of the community.”

Coroner’s officials believe the deaths likely occurred sometime Sunday, according to Mark Persons, spokesman for the Yolo County Sheriff-Coroner’s Department. The couple were last seen on Saturday, when Northup performed at the Davis Farmers Market with the Putah Creek Crawdads, the local folk band he helped form nearly 50 years ago.

But his uncharacteristic failure to show up for two scheduled performances on Sunday raised friends’ and relatives’ concerns, triggering that initial phone call to police.

As of Tuesday, the only indication that a tragedy had occurred at the Cowell Boulevard condo was a police-issued crime scene sticker sealing the front door. Near the sidewalk, mourners had placed several bouquets of flowers and taped a hand-drawn sign to a metal pole.

“In memory of Claudia and Chip; may they rest in peace,” the sign said.

Meanwhile, as the investigation continues, anyone with information is urged to call the Davis Police Department at 530-747-5400.

Black, the police chief, made a specific appeal to those whose homes and businesses in the area are equipped with surveillance cameras — or anyone who may have been filming or taking pictures in the neighborhood last weekend — to review their footage for anything even the slightest bit unusual.

“It may be meaningful to us,” Black said. “It may be the needle we’re looking for in that haystack.”

A 35-year-old Sacramento man who led Davis police on a 25-mile, high-speed pursuit from Davis to Fairfield on Monday morning after being observed near the murder scene has not been listed as a suspect in the case, Doroshov said.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

Woodland police say a man was stabbed Tuesday night in a shopping center parking lot.

Sgt. Frank Ritter said both the victim and a witness were uncooperative when officers tried to interview them at Woodland Memorial Hospital, where the victim arrived at about 8:50 p.m. with non-life-threatening lacerations to his back and left arm.

Ritter said the attack occurred in the parking lot of Purity Plaza, 9 Main St., where officers found evidence of an assault. The motive is unknown, however, and no suspects have been identified.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Woodland Police Department at 530-666-2411 or 530-661-7800. Callers may remain anonymous.

UPDATE: The search for Daniel Thompson has been postponed to 9 a.m. Saturday, starting at the Putah Creek Cafe in Winters and extending along Highway 128 toward Lake Berryessa, friends say.

Friends of a missing Davis man, Daniel Brian Thompson, plan to conduct a search for him today along one of his favorite biking routes.

Anyone interested in joining the effort should gather in front of the Starbucks at University Mall, 825 Russell Blvd., at 1 p.m. The search will cover the Highway 128 bike route from Davis up toward Lake Berryessa.

Participants will be assigned an area to cover, Gardner said. Searchers are asked to bring bikes, vehicles that can accommodate bikes, water, charged cell phones, bug spray and sunscreen, and should dress to protect themselves from poison oak.

Fliers also are being prepared for distribution.

Thompson, 25, hasn’t been seen since April 12 or heard from since Saturday, according to friends and Davis police. He also hasn’t shown up for work this week at UC Davis’ Mondavi Center, where he works as a scene technician.

“I know something is really, really wrong, and I’m actually really panicked about it now,” Erin Gardner, Thompson’s landlord and roommate, who last saw him Friday afternoon at their K Street residence.

Thompson wasn’t feeling well at the time, Gardner recalled. Since then, he hasn’t responded to any of her phone calls, emails or texts, when typically “he always responds very quickly.”

Gardner said she fears Thompson may have fallen ill or had an accident while riding his bike and is injured somewhere along a rural stretch of the bike route.

Davis police said Thompson exchanged texts with a friend at about 4 p.m. Saturday and made plans to meet him for dinner, but never arrived. There were no new developments in the case as of Thursday evening, according to Lt. Paul Doroshov.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

Woodland police announced Friday that Thursday’s report of a teen being held at gunpoint in a home invasion was false.

At about 4:30 p.m. Thursday, officers were dispatched to a robbery at an apartment in the 200 block of North College Street and found two suspects walking in the 700 block of Court Street holding the allegedly stolen property.

Officers arrested a 17-year old male juvenile and 18-year-old Woodland resident Anjay Singh for robbery, conspiracy, and possession of stolen property. The juvenile was booked at Yolo County Juvenile Hall. Singh was booked at the Yolo County Jail.

Through investigation it was determined that the 13-year-old male who had reported the incident had falsely reported the crime. He was booked at the Yolo County Juvenile Hall for filing a false police report.

Singh was released from the Yolo County Jail without charges. The 17-year-old male that had been previously booked at the Yolo County Juvenile Hall was released without charges.

A 13-year-old boy who reported being held at gunpoint during a robbery of his family’s Woodland apartment made the whole thing up, police announced Friday.

As a result, two teenagers arrested in connection with the report have been released from custody without charges, and the 13-year-old was booked at Yolo County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of filing a false police report, Woodland police Cpl. David Krause said.

According to Krause, the boy reported being robbed shortly after 4:30 p.m. Thursday at an apartment in the 200 block of North College Street, saying two people took video-game equipment from the residence while a third held him at gunpoint.

Police arrested the two teens a short time later in the 700 block of Court Street, where they reportedly were spotted holding the purportedly stolen property.

Krause did not explain why the boy allegedly filed the false report, or how the two teens who were arrested came to possess the video game equipment.