On June 13, 2020, shortly after 5 a.m., Jonathan Wiese, a 20 year member of the San Diego Police Department found his instincts as both a police canine officer and a father put to the ultimate test. Wiese was on duty when he heard a call for help over the police radio. It involved a pair of 2-year-old girls. “’Male subject left his house with his twin 2-year-old daughters, was possibly armed with a gun and threatening suicide by driving his truck off the Coronado Bridge,’” Wiese later recalled. The call jolted him; Wiese is the father of a 2-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy. Officer Wiese rushed to the Coronado Bridge but just a few minutes later, he learned the suspect was driving through Point Loma and had intentionally plunged off Sunset Cliffs, into the ocean below. Officer Wiese said he was one of the first responding officers to arrive at Sunset Cliffs. A mangled car was upside down in the water. The girls, along with their father, were still trapped in the car. Wiese said he first considered jumping off the 30 foot cliff but then remembered he had a 100-foot leash in his patrol car. He was one of only five canine officers equipped with the specific leash, most commonly used during SWAT-related cases. Wiese immediately tied the leash around his body and passed the other end to officers standing by. Then, he rappelled down the cliff. At the bottom of the cliff Officer Wiese found the father in the ocean holding his two daughters while trying to tread water and keep from drowning. “He had both girls," Wiese explained. "He was holding them and trying to tread water, but they were all going under. One was awake and crying the other one was pretty lifeless." Officer Wiese managed to rescue the family, pushing them onto the rocks. It was then he noticed one of the girls was struggling to breathe. He knew he had to get her to medics quickly in order to save her life. “She was somewhat crying, somewhat not,” Officer Wiese said afterward. “I tried to invert her, get the water out of her lungs, make sure she’s breathing. I put her in the bag, they threw the leash back down and hoisted her back up.” The rescue took an emotional toll on him. As a dad, Officer Wiese said thinking of his wife and kids is what motivated him to act so quickly. “I would do for the public, what I would do for them,” he said. “I treat everyone that way. I treat them as if they were my family down there, and that’s pretty much what happened in this case.” Investigators believe the fathers’ plunge from Sunset Cliffs was a suicide attempt. He was arrested and charged with several counts including kidnapping and attempted murder of his twin daughters. The lifesaving incident wasn’t the first time Officer Wiese has had to spring into action. In 2019, he was commended for his response during a Synagogue shooting. The proclamation memorialized the officer’s quick actions that led to the arrest of a mass shooting suspect who had murdered a woman and shot several others at the Chabad of Poway.