Burglary suspect dies in plunge on Telegraph Hill

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 9/11/8 | Henry K. Lee

[SmithL]

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, 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.

Officers set up surveillance in the area and spotted the man getting out of car. 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 to the west of Sansome Street near the Filbert Street Steps, apparently not realizing that there was a 200-foot drop, . . .

[SmithL]

A suspected car burglar, trying to elude police officers, died after jumping over a retaining wall at the end of Alta Street on Telegraph Hill, falling 200 feet below in San Francisco on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008.

[SmithL]

I love a happy ending!

[CE2949BB]

That’ll leave a mess.

[BigEdLB]

Blood spatters are tough to clean off a sidewalk

[businessprofessor]

I see an opportunity for legal justice. This poor, misunderstood, crime specialist was just trying to earn a buck. The owners of this retaining wall should be jailed. 3 feet is entirely inadequate to protect crime specialists from injury and death when completing their work. There should have been brightly lit signs in a 100 languages warning of the possible danger. There should be warnings for the visually or acoustically challenged crime specialists. The wall should not have been scalable. The city council needs to enact new building codes to ensure that this situation can never be repeated again. The city should immediately hire a new army of inspectors to test each wall.

[Hatteras]

Sure, a three-foot wall on THAT side maybe...

[T Baden]

Darwin Award winner!

[RichInOC]

32 feet per second per second. It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.

[dfwgator]

It’s not the plunge that killed him, it was the sudden stop.

[Azzurri]

The man jumped over a 3-foot wall to the west of Sansome Street near the Filbert Street Steps, apparently not realizing that there was a 200-foot drop

Seeing that it's San Francisco, I'm sure there will now be efforts to have a suicide barrier installed on this 3 ft wall. It's the next logical step in the liberal mind.

[SJSAMPLE]

Sudden Deceleration Syndrome.
Concrete Poisoning.

[Nailbiter]

Ping

One of those ohhh **** moments in life

[Revolting cat!]

Evidently, he fell in the middle of a gay bathhouse, and was warmly welcomed by the necrophiliac contingent!

[trisham]

Holy cow. That must have been a shock.

[MarkL]

We had something like this happen in KC not too long ago... There was a car chase late at night, and the bad guy bailed out of the car on I-70 just west of downtown, KC, and I guess he wasn't familiar with the area... I guess the thought he'd just jump off the highway after bailing out, without realizing that there was at least a 75 foot drop to the street below the overpass. He didn't survive.

Mark