A career criminal shot and killed a police dog in California before he was gunned down by cops, authorities said.
Johnny Ray Llamas, who had three outstanding felony warrants for robbery, sexually assaulting a child, and a parole violation, had been on the lam for weeks and was fleeing police in Riverside County, outside Los Angeles, when the K-9 officer Rudy was shot, according to a report and a video statement from Sheriff Chad Bianco.
The Special Enforcement Bureau of the sheriff’s office had been tracking Llamas, said Bianco, who released body camera footage of the K-9’s death and called the suspect a career criminal, Fox News reported.
A 911 caller in Perris, Calif., about an hour outside LA, told police on April 14 that a man and woman on drugs had come onto her property to avoid being captured by cops, authorities said.
The man, who Bianco said was Llamas, told the woman to stay put while he continued ahead so that only he would be arrested, according to the caller.
Deputies responded to the scene, along with Rudy, who led them to Llamas’ hiding place in the residential area which was thick with foliage.
In shaky body camera footage, deputies can be heard shouting “shots fired” and that Rudy had been hit.
Footage from the body cam and a helicopter shows Llamas crossing a road to avoid arrest, while deputies on the ground repeatedly shouted at him to “drop the gun” and “get on the ground.”
“You see that gun move, he gets it,” one deputy said in the video.
Llamas kept running and was heading toward people’s homes, before pointing a gun at the deputies, who then opened fire and killed him, according to the footage.
Rudy was taken to a veterinary hospital, where he died from his injuries.
A week before the shooting, Rudy and his handler had received first place at the Las Vegas Metro Police K-9 Trials in the Handler Protection Category, the sheriff’s office said.
No deputies were injured in the shooting, and the woman who had been on the run with Llamas was arrested.
