The mental health of a Canyon Country man accused of stabbing a sheriff’s detective at a fast food restaurant last month is now under review.
Donald Chinchilla, 21, charged with one count of deliberate, premeditated, attempted murder of a peace officer, appeared Thursday in San Fernando Superior Court for the purpose of setting a date for his preliminary hearing.
Instead, Chinchilla was ordered to appear back in court next month when a report prepared assessing his mental health is expected to be presented.
“For Chinchilla, on March 22, there’s a scheduled report on the defendant’s mental health status,” Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office told The Signal.
Chinchilla was arrested Jan. 8 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.
The suspect was arrested Jan. 8 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.
On the day of the attack, the alleged assailant came up to the victim—a law enforcement officer who was not in uniform and whom has not been identified—and the alleged attacker asked the officer if he was a deputy, and then stabbed the officer once in the chest, Sheriff’s Department officials told The Signal at the time.
The wounded detective, identified only as a member of the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Special Victims Bureau, was rushed to the hospital, treated and then later released.
Within a couple of hours of the attack, deputies surrounded a home a block north of where the stabbing occurred.
Deputies released a specially trained K9 unit dog 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.
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