ANAHEIM : Police Dogs Collar Pair in Theft, Assault

Police dogs helped arrest a 23-year-old man and a 16-year-old Anaheim youth early Tuesday morning after they allegedly tried to run over two Anaheim police officers investigating a possible auto burglary.

Arrested were Paul Anthony Koudssi, who told police he has no home, and the teen-ager, whom police did not identify because of his age. They were found hiding under a truck in the rear parking lot of a plumbing business on Brookhurst Street north of Lincoln Avenue, Lt. Marc Hedgpeth said.

The officers responded about 2:20 a.m. to a call of suspicious men peering into cars on Rob Way, a small residential street east of Brookhurst. When the officers arrived, two people got into a car, which then struck one of the officers and veered toward the second, Hedgpeth said.

The second officer fired several shots at the car but did not hit the men, he said. The officer who was struck sustained only minor injuries.

The car crashed nearby and the men ran from the area. Officers in a Huntington Beach police helicopter, called to help search for the pair, spotted them hiding beneath the truck but they refused to surrender, Hedgpeth said. Police dogs were used to rout the two, both of whom received minor bite wounds, he said.

Koudssi and the boy apparently had broken into a home on Rob Way earlier and had taken the keys to their getaway car, Hedgpeth said. The two were booked on suspicion of burglary, auto theft and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.