By Christopher Reynolds
Los Angeles Times
BURBANK, Calif. — One person is dead after a Saturday night exchange of gunfire near Interstate 5 that also killed a police dog, Burbank police said.
Authorities had not identified the dead gunman as of early Sunday afternoon. Burbank police said the incident unfolded after a traffic stop for illegally tinted windows around 6:40 p.m. Saturday on the 2400 block of Buena Vista Street.
While the vehicle’s driver cooperated, police said, the only passenger in the vehicle fled, “ran up the I-5 on-ramp and jumped over the freeway embankment wall into a nearby residential neighborhood.”
While some officers remained with the driver, a helicopter and other officers joined in the effort to find and capture the fleeing passenger amid foliage near the freeways. Looking down from the helicopter, police believed they saw that the suspect had a gun, Lt. Derek Green said at a media briefing on Sunday.
After that, Green said, authorities took steps that included deploying the department’s canine unit. During the search, police said, “the canine located the suspect. The suspect fired multiple rounds, striking the canine before fleeing on foot.”
The police dog, a 4-year-old Belgian Malinoix named Spike, had recently earned certification for narcotics work. He was one of two dogs in the department’s canine unit, both deployed to the scene.
Spike was wearing a ballistic vest, Green said, but just as with human officers, “the vest doesn’t always save you.”
After the shooting of the dog around 8 p.m., the pursuit continued and attempts at negotiation in English and Spanish stretched on for about three hours as Glendale police, SWAT team and crisis negotiators joined the effort.
Burbank police, including Spike’s handler, rushed the dog to an animal hospital in Glendale, but the animal’s wounds were too severe.
“The handler is upset,” said Green. “I was with him for several hours last night at the animal hospital.”
Meanwhile, at the freeway’s edge, the standoff continued. At about 11:30 p.m., despite multiple efforts to subdue the man with less lethal weapons, the suspect began shooting at police officers, Green said, striking two police vehicles. Police fired back and hit the suspect, Green said. He was unable to say how many shots were fired.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene and a handgun was recovered, Green said. As the investigation continued, lane closures on the freeway continued into Sunday morning.
As of 1 p.m. Sunday, Green said, authorities were still trying to learn the dead man’s name. Green said he did not have information on whether the driver was still in custody.
On social media Sunday morning the department announced the death of “our beloved K9 Spike, who courageously gave his life in the line of duty after being struck by gunfire from an armed suspect.”
By 1 p.m., a makeshift flower memorial was growing at the entrance to Burbank Police headquarters. In 21 months on the force, Green said, Spike had appeared at many community events and the department had printed up baseball cards bearing his likeness.
“This is a tough one,” Green said. “These are police officers. They’re dogs, but they’re part of the law enforcement family... trained to do exactly what this canine officer did. These dogs are trained to engage suspects in the most dangerous situations.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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