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SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 2020 • SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA • PRESSDEMOCRAT.COM

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SPORTS WHISTLEBLOWER: A’s pitcher is done talking about sign stealing and Sonoma County baseball veteran weighs in / C1

©2020 The Press Democrat

A teacher’s pet that all students admire

Assistance dog came into owner’s life after 2017 fires, aids in emergencies

PHOTOS BY BETH SCHLANKER / THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Patty Ruotolo pets Sierra, her hearing dog, while teaching in her classroom Tuesday at Sonoma Valley High School in Sonoma.

Around 12:45 on Tuesday afternoon, a fire alarm went off at Sonoma Valley High School.

School officials quickly determined there was no fire. That didn’t stop an occu-pant of Room H23 from taking the alarm very seriously.

Repeatedly, insistently, a 2-year-old gold-en Lab named Sierra poked her nose into the right leg of Patty Ruotolo, a special education teacher at this campus in the town of Sonoma.

It was a false alarm, but no one told Sierra. “She was going nuts,” said Ruotolo, who is deaf, and relies on her “hearing

By AUSTIN MURPHYTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT

TURN TO CANINE » PAGE A10

Patty Ruotolo talks with student George Stock, 15, while reading along with students in her class-room Tuesday at Sonoma Valley High School in Sono-ma. Ruotolo’s golden Lab not only helps her owner but has a positive effect on her students.

SONOMA VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL » CLASSROOM CANINE

Teen avoids jail in fatal crash

For a moment Friday, Santa Rosa teen Taylor Sorg returned to life in family photos and vid-eos played on a screen in Sono-ma County juvenile court.

Before a courtroom packed

with family and friends, Sorg grew up in images, from a chubby-cheeked baby to a tod-dler twirling the skirt of her pink dress to the sporty, goofy teen she had become last sum-mer when she was killed in a car crash at age 16.

The driver responsible for the July 1 crash, Rachel Lonto, 17, of Santa Rosa, watched too as vi-sions of Sorg’s effervescent life played upon the screen. Lonto was seated near her parents and

next to her lawyer, waiting for a key decision in her case.

Earlier this month, she had admitted to felony charges of vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving for the July 1 crash that killed Sorg, a school-mate at Maria Carrillo High and severely injured her friend and classmate, Kaitlyn Tyndall.

The Sorg and Tyndall fami-lies both pleaded that Lonto be forced to serve time in jail, but Judge Kenneth Gnoss on Fri-

day ruled she was suitable for a supervised rehabilitation pro-gram mandated by state laws for some juveniles facing criminal charges.

Gnoss announced his decision after a gut-wrenching three-hour hearing that became an emotional reckoning for three families grieving Sorg’s death, the potentially lifelong impacts of Tyndall’s injuries and Lon-to’s responsibility for it all.

“I would do anything to bring

her back and in a heartbeat I would have taken her place,” Lonto said through tears after the videos played.

The judge’s decision means Lonto will be able to avoid crim-inal charges or punishments if she complies with a strin-gent set of rules he set for her to follow, including a curfew, electronic monitoring, warrant-less searches and overall good

SANTA ROSA » Judge rules girl, 17, eligible for rehabilitation programBy JULIE JOHNSONTHE PRESS DEMOCRAT

TURN TO TEEN » PAGE A2

China lockdown grows to 35 million

BEIJING — China locked down more than 35 million people in an increas-ingly urgent effort to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus Friday, as the United States confirmed a second infected person and the respiratory ill-

ness found its way to Europe, where the first three cases were announced in France.

The pneumonia-like dis-ease has claimed 41 lives — all in China — and infected more than 1,000  people there. An official at the World Health Organization told report-ers that his organization has begun planning for an outbreak that will last

for months.Infections have been con-

firmed in France, South Ko-rea, Japan, Nepal, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan

and the United States.At least 50 people are under obser-

vation for the illness in 22 U.S. states, CHRIS BUCKLEY / NEW YORK TIMES

A traveler walks through the railway station Tuesday in Wuhan, China.

By ANNA FIFIELD AND LENA H. SUN WASHINGTON POST

TURN TO CHINA » PAGE A2

INSIDEChina’s health care system at breaking point with virus / A2

Donald Trump

Dems wrap up case for removal

WASHINGTON — House impeachment managers con-cluded their arguments against President Donald Trump on Fri-day by portraying his pressure campaign on Ukraine as part of a dangerous pattern of Russian appeasement that would contin-ue to imperil the country’s secu-rity if he remained in office.

Ending their three-day pre-sentation in the Senate, the pres-ident’s Democratic prosecutors summoned the ghosts of the Cold War and the realities of geopolitical tensions with Russia to argue that Trump’s abuse of pow-er had slowly shredded deli-cate foreign al-liances to suit his own interests.

“This is Trump first, not America first, not American ideals first,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the lead House manager. “And the result has been, and will continue to be, grave harm to our nation if this chamber does not stand up and say this is wrong.”

Schiff and the six other man-agers prosecuting the presi-dent also tied up the facts of

IMPEACHMENT » GOP senators appear unmoved as arguments concludeBy NICHOLAS FANDOSNEW YORK TIMES

TURN TO REMOVAL » PAGE A6

INSIDE ■ Republicans

still unconvinced by Dems / A6

■ Schiff gives fiery speech at hearing / A6

■ Orders to fire Yovanovitch recorded / A7