Driver Drags Officer, Is Shot to Death

Police shot a Chino man to death after he led officers on a vehicle chase through three county cities Wednesday, then dragged a patrolman for 30 feet when the officer reached into his pickup truck to arrest him.

Toby Paul Weiss, 29, was a part-time plumber with a history of reckless-driving citations, police said.

After dragging the Costa Mesa officer caught in the truck door, Weiss whirled the truck around again “and headed for other officers who were jumping out of his way,” Fountain Valley Police Lt. Robert Mosley said. “Around 10 shots were fired.”

The patrolman who had been dragged received only cuts and bruises, police said.

The chase began at 1:50 a.m. when Costa Mesa police saw Weiss’ white, 1980 pickup truck weaving northbound at the interchange of the Corona del Mar and Costa Mesa freeways. Police suspected the driver of being drunk; he refused to pull over.

Officers chased Weiss north to the San Diego Freeway, on which he continued northbound, then over surface streets in Fountain Valley and Santa Ana at speeds of up to 65 m.p.h., with a Costa Mesa police helicopter overhead, said Maureen Thomas, Santa Ana police spokeswoman.

Weiss finally turned off Harbor Boulevard onto 5th Street in Santa Ana. The pickup spun out of control a block away and stalled at Figueroa Street, Thomas said.

When an officer tried to remove Weiss from the truck, he suddenly got the truck started again and accelerated in reverse, dragging the officer by the arm about 30 feet. Weiss then spun the truck around and headed back toward other officers, who jumped back. Two police officers from Santa Ana and one from Fountain Valley fired, Thomas said.

“None of the officers involved are rookies, they’re all experienced,” Thomas said, adding that they were “protecting themselves.”

The officers, whose names were withheld, will be placed on three-day administrative leave and given counseling, police said.

Since 1985, Weiss had been cited three times in the county for speeding and once for reckless driving, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Last year, he pleaded guilty to evading arrest and driving without a license, according to records in the Harbor Municipal Court. In that incident, according to records, Weiss had been speeding and had run a red light. When a Costa Mesa officer stopped him, he ran off.

Weiss was sentenced to one weekend in Orange County Jail and ordered to pay a fine and attend 20 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, according to court records.

Weiss told police at the time that he was a plumber and had a grandmother in Costa Mesa and a brother in Huntington Beach. Neither family member could be reached Wednesday for comment.

The court issued a $100 warrant for Weiss’ arrest in September after he failed to prove he had attended any AA meetings.