Last Updated on January 17, 2023 by C-CAR
MENTONE >> Sheriff’s deputies arrested a 20-year-old Mentone man on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon not a firearm after they say he struck a deputy’s vehicle with his motor bike over the weekend.
Family members, however, say it was a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy who caused the crash, pointing to a YouTube video that shows a deputy’s vehicle colliding with the motorcyclist Saturday afternoon.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said Monday that deputies arrested Jon Dundee Hutchinson, 20, of Mentone after a 10-minute pursuit that began Saturday when a deputy saw Hutchinson pull out of the parking lot of the Mill Creek Cattle Company steakhouse on an unregistered dirt bike.
The deputy attempted to pull Hutchinson over, but he fled traveling at a high rate of speed, Miller said.
“He was driving on the wrong side of the road when the motorcyclist struck the patrol car,” Miller said.
In a release, Miller noted the lights were flashing and the siren was on the deputy’s vehicle.
“He travelled on the wrong side of the road numerous times, running stop signs and fleeing into the orange groves,” in a statement from the department.
Officials say Hutchinson was taken to Redlands Community Hospital, where he was evaluated. He suffered minor abrasions.
A bystander recorded the incident on video and has since posted it to YouTube. The shaky, nearly four-minute video shows the end of the pursuit, when the patrol car and the motorcycle collide on Opal Avenue.
In the recording, witnesses can be heard shouting and swearing: “Why the f— did they hit him?” “Hey, you guys are chumps!”
On Monday, Hutchinson’s mother, Jaymie Branham, said her son suffered a neck fracture in the incident. She said the pursuit occurred after her son made an obscene gesture at a deputy.
“Did they have to use such deadly force?” she said in an interview Monday. “By no means should he almost lose his life because of this. I don’t understand why they had to be so aggressive.”
In the video, it’s unclear how the collision occurred, and Branham said she has not heard from the sheriff’s department.
“They haven’t honestly explained anything to us,” she said.
Miller said she did not know if a dash camera was installed in the deputy’s vehicle.
Hutchinson is being held at West Valley Detention Center in lieu of $100,000 bail. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident, Miller said.
