Police probe drug-related fall from roof

Several questions remain unanswered in an incident involving a naked, 19-year-old man who broke his back and suffered other, minor injuries after falling 25 feet off the roof of the Phoenix Theater on Sunday morning.

“He had been at a dance at the theater on Saturday night, but no one noticed that he was under the influence, and we don't know how he got back in the building after it ended,” said manager Tom Gaffey.

The man, who was identified by Gaffey simply as Jesse, a regular patron, told police that someone surreptitiously gave him a food item containing LSD, causing him to feel that he could fly. He said that he had eaten food inside and outside the theater, which on Saturday night was holding a memorial dance for a Petaluma teen who died in a skateboarding accident last year.

Jesse, whose last name was not known by Gaffey and not released by police, fell off the roof of the theater, at 201 Washington St., and onto a lower roof of the building at around 5:45 a.m. Police officers arrived at the scene, and found that he was naked and injured. He was transported to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, said Lt. Tim Lyons of the Petaluma Police Department.

The circumstances leading up to the fall remain hazy.

“I cleared out the theater when I left at about 3 a.m., but the committee that put the dance on still were there,” Gaffey said.

He is unclear how Jesse got the acid, but said, “Jesse might have gone downtown and bumped into some groups of travelers.”

At some point between 3 a.m. and 5:45 a.m., Jesse returned to the building.

“I don't know how Jesse got back in, but he might have come in through a side entrance that the people cleaning up were using,” Gaffey said.

The roof can be accessed only from inside the theater. At one point, a custodian heard a noise on the roof, and staff members went up to check.

“They tried to talk him down,” Gaffey said, adding that he did not want to say any more about the situation.

Jesse subsequently fell, and later said that he became delusional and thought he could fly.

“We're pretty much in shock,” Gaffey said. “Jesse's usually a good soul — not one of my troublemakers. He sings a lot here. And he's pretty much a regular guy downtown.”

Police investigators are continuing to probe the incident.

(Contact Dan Johnson at dan.johnson@arguscourier.com)