West Covina Police K-9 Cleared To Return Home After Being Shot

WEST COVINA (CBSLA.com) — A police K-9 Officer is scheduled to be released Tuesday after being shot by an armed murder suspect Sunday night.

West Covina Police Department K-9 Reiko, the department's first community-purchased police dog, was rushed to the TLC Pet Medical Center in South Pasadena following the shooting Sunday night, West Covina police spokesman Officer Rudy Lopez said.

The 2-year-old German Shepherd was shot Sunday night by a suspect in the murder of a man whose body was found outside a West Covina church. The suspect, who had hidden on the roof of a home in the 1500 block of East Elgenia Street, jumped onto the home's driveway and fired at Reiko as the dog approached. Officers returned fire and killed the suspect.

Reiko was taken into surgery immediately, where Dr. Maureen Roberts and Dr. Freiwald stabilized Reiko and removed a bullet lodged dangerously close to his spine, Lopez said.

Once Reiko was stable enough to travel, Roberts tended to him while he was driven to a canine trauma specialist at Animal Specialty Group in Los Angeles, where Reiko will be released Tuesday night.

Donations and contributions made by businesses and citizens allowed the police department to purchase and train Reiko, who began working as a K-9 in December of 2013, Lopez said. Reiko was also the first police K-9 to ever be accepted as a Rotary Club member in the United States when he was inducted into the West Covina Sunrise Rotary on March 19 of this year.

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