Duo steals life-sized, bronze ram statue from outside Dixon hunting store
By Ashley Sharp
A pair of crafty thieves was caught on surveillance video making off with a large bronze ram that sat outside the KUIU headquarters in Dixon for nearly a decade.
When the bronze piece of art could not be rammed into the backseat of their vehicle, the thieves drove off and returned with a dolly to cart it away on New Year’s Eve.
KUIU posted on social media asking for the Solano County community’s help to get their beloved “Rocky” the ram back and are now offering a $5,000 reward for information.
The company wrote on Facebook, “Help us find the criminals who took our bronze Ram, Rocky, who stood as a beloved welcome to anyone who visited our Dixon store. On Dec. 31, criminals cut him down and stole him from us. We are offering a $5k reward for information leading to the arrest of the persons who did this.”
“Just to have it chopped down because some guy thinks he can make a few bucks on it. That’s why we can’t have nice things in today’s society,” said Josh Tobey, the artist who sculpted the ram in 2017. “Rocky, our missing ram, he was really a proud focal point for KUIU at their headquarters there in Dixon, and it’s just a tragedy to see it destroyed.”
Tobey is a second-generation bronze sculptor and has created hundreds of life-size bronze animal art pieces that sit in public and private collections across the world.
“Cutting it down, defacing it and just looking at it as simple metal value, the value of the scrap metal that they may have cut that ram into, that’s a tragedy, because it was worth so much more than that,” said Tobey. “It’s supposed to exist for thousands of years, and it tells the story of our time, tells a story of KUIU and this generous company that does so much for people and wildlife and conservation.”
For the artist, there’s a lesson in watching the surveillance video.
“What am I thinking about? I’m thinking about how to secure these things even better. I learned a lot watching that,” said Tobey.
Dixon Police tell CBS Sacramento they are investigating the crime. Anyone with information can call the department at 707-678-7070.
