During an arrest in San Bernardino County on Easter Sunday, Jared, a Belgian Malinois police dog, was thrown out of a second-story window by a parolee. Bryan Bills, 28, refused to surrender to officers, and when they sent Jared in, police believe that Bills used the dog’s momentum to throw him out of the window.
“The dog went to bite him — jumped to bite him. He side-stepped and pushed him out (the window),” officer Steven Bechtold, Jaris’ partner, told CBSLA.com. “I saw him go out the window, and I didn’t know what was going on from there. I just feared the worst.”
“I saw him for about six or seven feet as he went out and lost sight of him,” Bechtold continued to KABC. “My first thought was, ‘What happened to my dog? What happened to my partner? But yet I’ve got an officer here, we still have to deal with the suspect.'”
Jared landed on his head, then staggered around, bleeding from the nose. He suffered a large gash on his head. Officers rushed him into a cruiser and took the five-year veteran of the Fontana Police Department to the animal hospital.
“I thought he was dead,” Bechtold said. “I thought he would be dead or paralyzed.”
At first, veterinarians feared the worst, testing Jared for brain damage. Fortunately, that threat seems to have passed. They told Bechtold that nothing was broken and there was no internal bleeding, and they sent Jared home with a bandage around his head and a supply of painkillers.
This is a first,” Lt. Gary Aulis, head of the department’s K-9 program, told the Los Angeles Times. “Of the dogs injured in the line of duty, we’ve never had something even remotely like this happen.”
Unfortunately, Jared was rushed back to the vet late Tuesday, according to CBSLA.com. He has a tear in his sinuses, which allows air to leak in, causing pain. It’s expected to heal in a few days, but Jared is off-duty for 14 days.
“He’s very sensitive. He’s very emotional,” Bechtold said. “He’s always high drive, ready to play, ready to go; he’s pretty much the same every day. What you see is what you get.”
Bechtold is optimistic about his partner’s recovery.
“I kind of didn’t think we’d have him around when I saw him go out the window, but he keeps getting better and better, so it’s been a tough week,” Bechtold said. “But it’s been a good week at the same time.”
