The Canyon Country man accused of stabbing a sheriff’s detective at a fast food restaurant Monday remains in custody without bail, slated to appear in court.
Donald Chinchilla, 21, was arrested Monday morning after deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station cordoned off a neighborhood one block north of the Jack in the Box restaurant where the stabbing occurred.
Detectives have yet to identify or release a motive for the attack.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Homicide Detective Joe Mendoza, with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, when asked about the why behind the stabbing. “We don’t know.”
And, why a plainclothes detective?
“We believe he (wounded detective) was targeted,” Mendoza said, “because he was a detective with the (Los Angeles County) Sheriff’s Department.”
The wounded detective, identified only as a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Special Victims Bureau, is expected to make a full recovery, according to sheriff’s officials.
Shortly before 10:30 a.m. Monday, a little more than two hours after the attack, deputies released a specially trained K9 unit onto the property where they believed the suspect to be.
The dog found the suspect hiding in the backyard and bit him, allowing deputies to move in and arrest him.
The suspect received medical treatment for his dog bite before he was placed behind bars, Mendoza said.
Chinchilla was transferred to the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles and scheduled to appear in San Fernando Superior Court on Wednesday.
As for a second man detained by deputies Monday after he emerged from the house identified as the suspect’s location, Mendoza said, “That person was later released.”
Captain Darren Harris told reporters Monday at the scene of the stabbing that their suspect in the case — whose name was not disclosed at the time — was known to local sheriff’s deputies who had had run-ins with the man previously.
Deputies had contact with Chinchilla as recently as Saturday.
A review of arrest records show that deputies arrested Chinchilla on the morning of Nov. 29 on suspicion of domestic violence, specifically, battery against a non-cohabitating former spouse.
A spokesman with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Tuesday a case had not been filed with prosecutors regarding the arrest in November.
661-287-5527
On Twitter @jamesarthurholt
