Prosecutor Has Suspect in Dog-Tossing

Authorities have a prime suspect in last year’s bizarre road rage incident in which a man yanked a woman’s dog from her car and tossed it into oncoming traffic, a Santa Clara County prosecutor said Thursday.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Al Weger said he could not release any information about the suspect, but said he hoped the case could be resolved--and charges possibly filed--by next week.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that the suspect is in Santa Clara County Jail on unrelated charges, and that police found him through an anonymous e-mail.

San Jose police spokesman Rubens Dalaison dismissed the report in the Mercury News, saying authorities did not have a prime suspect and that authorities were no closer to solving the case, in which a 10-year-old bichon frise named Leo was killed.

Dalaison and Weger said the suspect was one of several people who came under suspicion soon after the Feb. 11, 2000, incident in which Leo was grabbed from the lap of owner Sara McBurnett. It happened after McBurnett’s car bumped another motorist’s vehicle near San Jose International Airport.

Dalaison said McBurnett failed to pick the man in custody out of two earlier photo lineups, and that police are no closer to solving the case “unless there’s some incredible information that comes out of this individual that’s in custody.”

Weger said he could not comment on the photo lineups.