FREEDOM — The California Highway Patrol Santa Cruz Unit declined to provide information about a shooting its officers were involved with after a vehicle pursuit Friday night ended outside Watsonville.
Agency spokesperson Officer Israel Murillo responded Monday to a request for details by saying that the incident remained under investigation and that he hoped to provide a press release “sooner than later.”
Per emergency radio broadcasts between officers and dispatchers, the CHP was alerted that a vehicle of interest in a weapons brandishing case had triggered a license plate-reading camera shortly before 6 p.m. on Freedom Boulevard. A responding officer reported spotting and pulling over the blue Toyota Camry soon after at Stewart Avenue and Green Valley Road.
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Both the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office and Watsonville Police Department were called in for backup. A responding Watsonville officer at the scene said law enforcement was trying to have the man surrender while, audible in the background, another officer yelled for the man to “get on the ground” and a dog barked.
A Sheriff’s deputy reported that a shot had been fired. A Watsonville officer described the shooting as having “an unknown line of fire.”
The driver was detained soon after, reportedly with a K-9 bite to his left ankle.
