An early Saturday morning search in Walnut Creek drew a lot of attention from readers – especially when the chopper buzzed in – but it turned out a trooper named Sheyna was the real boots on the ground that morning, finding a missing person within minutes.
Things started, for us, this way – with a note from a reader:
Helicopter circling over cherry lane/ 680 for over 30 minutes.
Any idea of what’s going on?
Thanks!
We get a lot of these sorts of inquiries here but we asked around and heard back from Walnut Creek Police Chief Thomas Chaplin on his Saturday, informing the readership that the county sheriff had put up its helicopter at 1:30 a.m. that morning to help look for a person at risk due to diabetes who had gone missing. That explained the chopper buzzing overhead but WCPD followed up their message a short while later with another one.
Turned out that the high-tech aerial approach was just the tip of the spear of the police effort, with the county asking for a canine team from Walnut Creek to assist with things on the ground when the at-risk person proved hard to find.
Officer Joe Coffin and Sheyna turned up to lend a hand – and paws – and ended up tracking and finding the missing person in about two minutes. Everyone reunited and safe and law enforcement kudos for Sheyna’s sniffer. And that, as radio man Paul Harvey used to say, “is the rest of the story.”
Unknown if Sheyna got a fresh tennis ball to chew on that night.
