Bear visits Mission College and Sylmar neighborhood, gets knocked out with a tranquilizer

The television news helicopters hovered overhead and Los Angeles police officers looked on as the large suspect clawed up a royal palm in a Sylmar backyard before scampering down.

This was no ordinary suspect trying to give police the slip.

It was a large bear first spotted on the campus of Mission College about 8 p.m. Monday. After two hours of chasing the bear through the neighborhood, a state Fish and Wildlife game warden hit the bear with a tranquilizer dart. TV news cameras later showed the bear lying on its side, seemingly unconscious and breathing slowly with its front legs manicled.

The bear was initially seen wandering on campus by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who patrol the school. The bear wasn’t near students but word went out for faculty and students to shelter in place while authorities searched for the animal, officials said.

Deputies working with the LAPD and Animal Services began tracking the bear, which fled the campus. Shortly afterward, the animal was seen in the backyard of a home near the intersection of Eldridge Avenue and Hubbard Street climbing the palm tree.

Authorities closed in as the bear continued to roam. LAPD officers stood nearby with their rifles drawn when the game warden took aim with the tranquilizer.

Struck by the dart, the bear staggered to a halt in a Sylmar backyard on Fenton Avenue, and a small army of law enforcement officers descended to help move the bear so the animal could be released in the nearby mountains.

For SoCal crime & investigations follow me on Twitter @lacrimes

ALSO

Man charged in slaying of woman found in ice chest

Authorities seek identity of man whose decomposed body washed ashore in Pismo Beach

Mysterious death of horse abandoned in Sylmar was an accident, not animal cruelty, police say