Stolen dog reunited with owner after police chase, shooting

A stolen dog was reunited with its owner after going on a wild 40-mile police chase with two suspects — which ended in a police-involved shooting after they crashed into a 7-Eleven.

Deputies from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado picked up a pursuit of a possible stolen vehicle that was driving recklessly and refused to pull over around 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.

During the chase, the suspects opened fire on police and purposefully side-swiped two other vehicles, according to the sheriff’s office.

Deputies successfully deployed road spikes and the driver deliberately drove the car into a 7-Eleven. A clerk and a customer inside the store were both unharmed, police said.

When deputies converged on the vehicle, the driver, identified as 32-year-old Kyle Williamson pointed a gun at officers and refused to follow commands, prompting them to open fire and striking him several times.

He was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. A female passenger, Hannah Woolard, 37, was uninjured and also taken into custody.

After the crash, Kaddie Rima and her sister-in-law Carly Rima happened to be in the area and noticed a dog, named Major, sitting behind the convenience store near some railroad tracks, KDVR reported.

They were able to coax the dog into their car and brought him to a local vet who scanned his chip and got him back to his owner in Thornton — where the police pursuit began.

“For his owner’s sake, she wouldn’t have imagined this is how she would get her boy back,” Carly Rima told the outlet.

“He was in an accident. He was in a shooting,” she said.

Major had been reported missing since March.

“This sweet French mastiff mix was stolen in March by the same person she entrusted to watch him while she was out of town,” Rima wrote on GoFundMe page, raising money for the dog’s readjustment costs. 

“He blocked her phone, and moved away and she never saw Major again. She has been hoping and praying for him to make it into a vet, where they would see that the dog was listed as stolen on the microchip,” she said, adding that his owner had bottle-fed him since he was a pup.

Rima said in the post that the male suspect identified by police was the man Major’s owner said stole the dog.

The Sheriff’s Office told KDVR they could not comment on any possible dog connection until Monday.