Photo: Carlos Medina
Santa Barbara County – Anyone hoping to outrun the cops in the Santa Barbara area might want to brush up on their skills as a “dog whisperer.”
According to Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Kelly Hoover, there is no shortage of pride taken by the department in their K-9 teams. “We are fortunate to currently have three German Shepherds assigned to Patrol Operations,” a clear indication that suspects hoping to evade arrest now have the odds stacked against them.
Evidence of that came at approximately 9:00 p.m. on the evening of February 9th when a 911 call informed deputies of a suspected stalker in a Goleta residential neighborhood. The suspect individual was identified by the caller as 50-year-old Santa Barbara resident Carlos Medina, who was quickly determined to be “on active parole with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”
With that information in hand, deputies soon located Medina driving through the reported neighborhood. A simple traffic stop was attempted, but Medina put pedal to the metal and sped off into the night. “Driving at high speeds and recklessly,” he eventually came to a halt and attempted to continue his flight on foot.
Medina was soon discovered “hiding behind a parked vehicle,” but attempts to take him into custody were forcefully resisted. And that’s when one of the aforementioned German Shepherds went to work. Minutes after the deputies deployed their K-9 unit at the scene, Medina was “successfully apprehended.”
So “successful” was the K-9 “apprehension” that Medina was then transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital for treatment of “minor injuries.” Once he was bandaged up, Medina was then transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked on charges of stalking, resisting peace officers, possession of methamphetamine, and reckless evasion. He remains in custody with his bail set at $150,000.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking.
