With the help of an Edmonds police dog and a King County Sheriff’s Office helicopter, Edmonds police were able to arrest three suspects early Friday morning following an altercation outside an Edmonds motel room in the 22100 block of Highway 99.

According to Edmonds police spokesman Sgt. Mike Blackburn, the incident began at 1:33 a.m. Friday when motel management asked police to remove three unregistered guests from a second-floor motel room. As officers approached the room, the three suspects ran to a nearby elevator and one of them — a 31-year-old Tukwila man — began fighting with the officers. Meanwhile, the other two suspects — a 39-year-old Yakima man and a 29-year-old Port Orchard man — were “frantically grabbing unknown items from their clothing,” which were scattered about the floor before the two men bolted from the motel on foot, Blackburn said.

Police observed that the discarded bags contained suspected narcotics along with other evidence of illegal drug trafficking. As a result, an Edmonds Police K-9 unit began tracking the fleeing suspects, assisted by officers from the Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood police departments as well as the King County Sheriff’s Office helicopter, Guardian 1.

At 2:24 a.m., police dog Dash located the two remaining suspects in an undeveloped area east of the motel, where they had attempted to hide

The three suspects, all of them previously convicted felons, were arrested and booked for possession of illegal narcotics with intent to deliver. Officers later learned that the 31-year old Tukwila suspect had outstanding felony warrants for robbery and possession of narcotics.