Thursday, September 11, 2008

Look before you leap

Tim read this in the news today. It's kind of sad, but then I also think of the "Darwin Awards" and how this one will probably get on the list. I also can't help think it's one less person who's jail time we don't have to pay for. Rough but true.

It's just hard to imagine this happening. Yikes!

Car-burglary suspect vaults wall, falls to his death on Telegraph Hill
Thursday, September 11, 2008

12:29 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A car-burglary suspect fell to his death early today after he climbed over a wall on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill while trying to flee from police, apparently unaware that on the other side of the wall was a 200-foot cliff, authorities said.

The incident began at 12:30 a.m. when police received reports of a someone breaking into a car on the unit block of Alta Street near Montgomery Street, east of Coit Tower.

Plainclothes officers set up surveillance in the area and spotted the man getting out of an Audi, said police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens. Police tried to stop him, but he took off running. At one point, he stumbled and a screwdriver fell out of his pocket, police said.

The man jumped over a 3-foot wall at the end of Alta Street and plunged the equivalent of 20 stories. He was pronounced dead at the scene, west of Sansome Street.

His name was not immediately released.

Officers found that a Subaru and possibly a third car had been broken into, Gittens said.

Louie Mandecote, a caregiver for a resident on Alta, said the incident was unnerving because "this neighborhood is so quiet."

Mandecote added, "It's a long-way drop from where Alta Street is. He probably doesn't live here if he didn't know that."

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.

1 comment:

teahouse said...

Is it just a coincidence that the high drop is on Alta Street? Doesn't "alta" mean high in Spanish?