Dog that fled police shooting in Morongo Valley rescued, fulfilling a final wish

Making good on a man’s last wish, a group of people in Morongo Valley found a dog that fled a fatal shooting near a park and are reuniting it with the man’s friends and family.

Melissa Swan contacted The Desert Sun and identified her former employee, Frank Glasgow, as the man who was shot and killed by police near Covington Park on Jan. 6 after a brief chase. Swan said Glasgow called her and said he was considering suicide after having fled the winter cold of the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains and was living in his car for weeks in the high desert.

Despite her attempts to dissuade him, he asked that she take care of his dog, a German Shepherd named Baby Bear, and cut the call.

Swan called police soon after her conversation with Glasgow Saturday afternoon and informed them that he was suicidal and had said he would threaten them with a knife if approached. She said he was not a violent person and had a bad limp from a previous injury. He had lost his housing in Mammoth Lakes and been struggling with mental health issues.

He led police on a short chase through the residential streets near the preserve before a spike strip incapacitated his vehicle.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department reported that the man, who they have not publicly identified, struck one of their patrol cars and lunged with a knife at a deputy. Glasgow was fatally shot soon after. People in the area gave various accounts of the confrontation and saw his dog flee into the wildlands surrounding the park during the chaos.

Making good on a promise

Once she learned of Glasgow’s death, Swan asked anybody with information on the dog’s whereabouts to contact her as she hoped to follow through with her promise to adopt Baby Bear.

“That was Frank’s final wish,” Swan said.

After reading about Swan’s effort to recover the dog, a group of residents banded together to help. And following a concerted search, some clever humane traps of food, and one searcher sleeping in her car near the park through one of the winter’s coldest nights yet, the dog was found Tuesday morning.

“I’m so appreciative, all these volunteers really went above and beyond to help us out,” Swan said Tuesday. “It’s the one bright spot in this whole tragedy.”

Stephanie Barton and Susan Herring have considerable experience catching dogs in the area and returning the pets to their families or other safe homes. When they heard that the dog fled, they started almost immediately gathering information and searching the area east of Highway 62, which gives way to the wilderness of the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve and Joshua Tree National Park beyond.

“Usually when dogs are lost they return to the place where they were last with their owner, wherever is familiar,” Barton said, noting the scene of the shooting near Covington Park as a focal point of the search.

Several residents in the area, including John Ehrlich and Corey Jaseph, said they saw Glasgow with his dog soon before his death as they were on a walk through the park. They exited the area when a police helicopter ordered them to by megaphone, and observed a large number of patrol cars chasing him soon before they heard gunfire.

The shooting is being investigated by the sheriff’s department. All fatal police shootings are subject to California records release laws that will provide the public with access to body camera footage.

‘Baby Bear was his best friend’

Swan did not anticipate such a committed group of local residents would step up and find the dog so quickly. Barton and Herring were joined by a couple who live nearby, Norman Niessner and Hanna Overcast, to help monitor the area. Herring slept in a car near the park overnight to keep watch. And early Tuesday morning Niessner called Barton saying he saw the dog in a neighbor’s yard.

Barton said she rushed over and approached the neighbor’s window. She said she never identified the man who lived there, but he generously let her close his gates and calmly corral the dog she presumed had slept in a thicket of heavily thorned catclaw acacia nearby. As she approached it, she said, Swan coincidentally called her. She had Swan and one of Glasgow’s relatives speak to the dog on speaker phone to calm it as she approached.

“He was scared but he looks healthy,” Barton said.

Barton kept Baby Bear at her house since Tuesday morning, adding it has made temporary friends with her own dog, preferring to keep near its owner’s leash as it waits to be picked up by Glasgow’s relatives, who could not be contacted to comment as they were traveling.

Barton, who has an array of rescued animals that she cares for, said it was the most emotional rescue she’d done — in large part due to Glasgow’s death and having his relative on the phone when Baby Bear was found. She noted that Saturday’s chase, the helicopter thundering overhead and the gunshots were all quite alarming to the residents of the sleepy town known for horse riding on its dirt streets and birding in its nature preserve.

Many people wanted to help, she said, because they know the support an animal companion can provide to a person experiencing hard times or ill health.

“It brought people some peace through a really scary, sad situation that hit close to home,” said Barton. “It even brought his family some peace, I think. They keep telling me Baby Bear was his best friend.”

Christopher Damien covers public safety and the criminal justice system. He can be reached at christopher.damien@desertsun.com or follow him at @chris_a_damien.