A burglary suspect escaped a police car by breaking the window with his head then fell 90 feet to his death.
Kaylen English, 20, from Ohio, jumped out of the moving cruiser and off the Salem Avenue Bridge as officers were taking him to jail on Saturday night.
He landed in a rocky part of the span rather than the water and was rushed to hospital but died later from his injuries.
Lt Kim Hill said Dayton police were transporting the prisoner, who was not initially identified, to the Montgomery County jail around 9:40pm after he was arrested on a burglary count.
She said: ‘On the bridge, the prisoner starts to bang his head against the rear passenger window. The officer starts to pull over, and once he pulled over, the suspect had the window broken. He then went head-first out the window and head-first over the bridge.
‘In 22 years, I’ve never seen anything like it.’
According to Dayton Daily News, the police cruiser was roughly in the middle of the bridge, but the Great Miami River only goes beneath the north one-third of the span, and the man landed on a flat, dry, rocky area of the flood plain about 30 feet below.
Police would not say whether the man was intoxicated, adding those details would come from an autopsy.
English’s girlfriend Carlissa Johnson, 16, said she could not understand how this could have happened if her boyfriend was handcuffed.
She said: ‘It’s not adding up to me. I can’t even picture that in a stunt movie.’
English’s uncle Eric Gary said: ‘This was a tragic loss for his family. We just hope that we can work closely with the Dayton Police Department to resolve this issue and to give some closure for the family.’
He also said that English had a six-month-old son and aspired to be an artist.
