NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Several teenagers face charges in connection with an incident that led to the death of Lee County Sheriff’s Office K9 Dundee.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Carmine Marceno said the loss of K9 Dundee has deeply affected the department. “Heartbroken is an understatement,” Marceno said.<\/p>\n
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office mourns K9 Dundee as not just a dog, but a devoted deputy and family member. Marceno described the emotional toll on Dundee’s handler and his family.<\/p>\n
“To see a grown man, one of my family members, hug the deceased K-9 in tears with his wife. Is there’s just no words that can describe how that feels or what it means,” Marceno said.<\/p>\n
Early Monday morning, Lee County deputies responded to the Island Vista Estates in North Fort Myers after reports described there had been recent burglaries and suspicious individuals running away from law enforcement. Neighbor Paul Passalaqua said he had heard about the suspicious activity.<\/p>\n
“Somebody coming knocked on the door the other day and told me if I saw anything because there was a burglary the other night before this happened,” Passalaqua said.<\/p>\n
The arrest report shows a sergeant had approached a vehicle near the Island Vista Estates community that had been parked illegally and smelled of marijuana. Five people were inside the vehicle and told not to leave.<\/p>\n
However, investigators say one person ran away from the scene. Deputy Chala, along with K-9 Dundee, responded.<\/p>\n
Dundee successfully tracked and apprehended the suspect in the woods. K9 Dundee became unresponsive after the arrest and was later pronounced deceased at Blue Pearl Hospital.<\/p>\n
Sheriff Marceno said that the necropsy to determine K9 Dundee’s death is still underway, but has reason to believe Dundee suffered from a medical emergency, and not a gun shot or stab wound.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Passalaqua said the incident was unsettling for the neighborhood. “…Makes you shaken up. I mean, it doesn’t happen much around here,” Passalaqua said.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Simison, 19, Zahquavion Jackson, 19, and Aaron Silva-Fernandez, 18, are charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, possession of marijuana and child in violation of imposed conditions. The suspect who ran away and was later arrested is not named because he is a minor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORTH FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK) \u2014 Several teenagers face charges in connection with an incident that led to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,15439,28,897,1598,7692],"class_list":["post-413970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-dundee","tag-florida","tag-fort-myers","tag-law-enforcement","tag-lee-county-sheriff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}