Road rage leads to deaths of Tesla driver and police dog at San Diego campus
Before he collapsed, the driver fired a handgun, fatally wounding a police dog named Sir.
What started as a road rage incident ended with an exchange of gunfire that killed one of the drivers and a police dog on a San Diego college campus.
The 33-year-old man was fatally shot by a police officer around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, said the San Diego County sheriff’s office, which is investigating the death.
Before he collapsed, the man fired a handgun, fatally wounding a police dog named Sir.
The incident began in a neighborhood about half a mile from San Diego Mesa College: A resident there reported that he had been driving to his home when he ended up behind a Tesla sedan that was being driven erratically. As he pulled out to pass the Tesla, he heard a gunshot.
The Tesla followed him to his home, and more shots were reportedly fired by a person who stepped out of the car. One bullet went into a house; nobody inside was injured, the sheriff’s report said.
When San Diego police officers arrived in the neighborhood, they saw the Tesla and attempted to pull it over. The driver instead led them to Mesa College and got out of the car in a parking lot there. He was talking on his phone and holding a gun when the officers confronted him.
Ignoring their commands, he began walking away, and they released the police dog. As the man turned and raised his handgun, an officer fired a single shot from a rifle, and the man was struck in the upper torso.
The man was pronounced dead at a hospital at 3:20 a.m. His name was not released.
The dog, who was shot in the chest, died at a veterinary clinic. He was a 4½-year-old Belgian malinois who had been with the department since March 2022.
The shooting will be investigated by the sheriff’s homicide unit and the police department, and the findings will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office. The Federal Bureau of Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will also be monitoring the investigation, the sheriff’s statement said.