Don Sweeney
Sacramento Bee
CORONA, Calif. — A man who refused to exit his pickup truck after a police chase got a surprise visitor early Friday morning when a police K9 suddenly joined him, KABC reports.
A video shows Duke, a Corona Police Department dog, dive through the shattered driver’s side window and attack the flailing fugitive, KTLA reported.
With Duke’s assistance, police arrested Julio Vasquez, 31, on suspicion of stalking and evading police, KABC reported. He also could face charges for punching Duke in the fracas, police say.
California Highway Patrol officers had chased Vasquez into Corona, a Riverside County city of about 170,000 people, at 12:50 a.m. and requested police assistance, police wrote on Twitter.
The pursuit, which began in Fontana after CHP officers spotted his pickup truck while looking for him in a reported assault, ended near El Cerrito Road and Interstate 15, KTLA reported.
“He barricaded himself in the truck and refused to come out,” Officer Michael Neff, Duke’s handler, said in a video posted by TMZ.
In the on-scene video, an officer shoots out the driver’s side window with a rubber bullet and Neff releases Duke, who dives right through the broken glass into the cab with Vasquez. Online fans of police dogs refer to this as a “fur missile.”
Vasquez tries to fight off Duke, as officers open the door and call off the dog, the video shows. Vasquez falls to the pavement, where officers arrest him.
Vasquez suffered minor injuries from dog bites, KTLA reported. Fontana police took him into custody.
Duke, a 7-year-old Belgian Malinois who came to the Corona Police Department about two years ago after training in Holland and military duty in Iraq, is doing well, Neff told TMZ.
“He’s doing great,” Neff said. “He feels great, he’s happy.”
No officers were injured in the incident, Corona police reported on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/CoronaPD/status/1208078406123847681 https://twitter.com/CoronaPD/status/1208078407277219840