Officers mourn K-9 killed on duty

MIDVALE — After hearing gunshots Friday night, officers turned a corner to find their newly certified police service dog, Koda, fatally wounded.

"He may have saved the life of one or more of our officers," Midvale Police Sgt. Marcelo Rapela said Saturday. "He did his job, and he did it well."

The dog had been sent to detain Tevita Talanoa Fisiitalia, one of four people who had been caught trying to flee the scene of an attempted robbery near 6700 South and 625 East at around 8:30 p.m. Friday. When icy road conditions prohibited the getaway driver from speeding away in a stolen vehicle, the four occupants jumped out of the car, running in all different directions, Rapela said.

One occupant ran back into the home the group had attempted to burglarize and locked the doors. A woman, not the homeowner, and her children were inside at the time but were able to get out before the doors were locked, thus "avoiding an even bigger catastrophe," Rapela said.

The owner of the home, to which police had been called two weeks ago due to a report of a "suspicious person" lurking in the backyard, was out of town, and the woman had been house-sitting there with her children.

Fisiitalia was chased by officers around the back of a neighboring home. At one point, police lost track of him and released Koda, a 3 1/2-year-old Belgian Malinois that had been with the Midvale department K-9 squad just over a year, to detain him. Koda's handler, a Midvale police officer, heard the gunshots and encountered the dead dog upon rounding the corner of the home.

"He's having a tough time," Rapela said of the dog's handler, adding that Koda was "a very aggressive, hard-working dog."

"A handler and his dog spend a tremendous amount of time together," Rapela said. The handler, who is on paid administrative leave, will be given the opportunity to choose whether he wants another police service dog in the future.

Fisiitalia, 22, had shot two rounds from a 9mm handgun, both hitting the dog. Officers returned fire, and the man was hit once. Rapela said Fisiitalia was taken to the hospital, where he later died from the gunshot wound.

Officers arrested 33-year-old Clinton Sean Peterson, who Rapela said was "heavily intoxicated at the time of his arrest," before he could get far and before other agencies were called to assist them. Charles Uriah Wright, 28, was also arrested.