A Sheriff’s canine made a felony arrest this Friday night following a short foot pursuit. Just after 5:00 PM deputies were alerted to a stolen motorcycle parked on the second floor of the parking lot at the Graton Casino in Rohnert Park. A 2005 BMW motorcycle had recently been stolen out of San Francisco and it was equipped with a stolen vehicle recovery system which pinged in one of our patrol cars outfitted with a receiver. The deputy found the motorcycle parked in the garage and worked with casino security to provide surveillance.
At about 5:45 PM casino security called and advised a suspect was getting on the bike and starting to drive away. Knowing that this motorcycle would endanger the public if they engaged in a pursuit. Several deputies used their patrol cars to seal off the exits of the garage.
The suspect, Timothy Miller, 43 of Napa, tried to drive around the Sheriff’s patrol cars by driving over a curb and through a dirt path with shrubs. Miller lost control of the bike, laid it down and took off running on foot. The deputy gave chase and deployed his 2-year-old Belgian Malinois named Mako.
Mako quickly gained ground on Miller and bit his hand, pulling him to the ground where deputies were able to take him into custody without further incident. Miller was searched upon his arrest and was in possession of 2 bags of cocaine and 4 bags of heroin. Miller had originally give deputies a false name but fingerprints taken at the jail revealed his true identity and that he had four arrest warrants from three different counties for a number of charges including vehicle theft, narcotics and weapons violations.
Miller was booked into the Sonoma County Jail on charges of vehicle theft, possession of stolen property, resisting arrest, evasion, driving on a suspended license and impersonation of another. He remains in custody on $195,000 bail due to his warrants.
