LOCAL : 3 Hurt in Wild Freeway Melee

A sheriff’s deputy and a child were hit by a car and another officer was bitten by a dog today in a wild freeway melee involving a hit-and-run driver, authorities said.

Neither the deputies nor the child was seriously injured. The hit-and-run suspect, a 42-year-old man, was treated for injuries suffered in a struggle with deputies who arrested him.

The episode began about 8:15 a.m. when several narcotics deputies in a four-wheel-drive vehicle became involved in a minor traffic accident with two other cars on the westbound Pomona Freeway near Hacienda Boulevard.

Deputy Bill Wehner said all the cars’ occupants were standing on the shoulder of the freeway when the suspect plowed through the group in his car. The child, who had been a passenger in one of the cars, and one of the deputies were hit.

The other deputies jumped into a Sheriff’s Department patrol car that had just arrived at the accident scene and gave chase, stopping the suspect’s car a short distance away in the center divider of the freeway. As the man allegedly resisted arrest, his dog jumped out and bit one of the deputies.