Thursday, September 17, 2009

Man jumps from I-74 bridge, captured by police

by Tory Brecht, and Dustin Lemmon [available online via QCTimes.net September 14 2009]

A man who jumped off the Interstate 74 bridge tonight was captured by a Bettendorf police officer who commandeered a recreational boat as part of a Mississippi River search for the suspect.

Lt. Warren Beine of the Bettendorf Police Department identified the man who was arrested less than an hour after the incident began as Brian Moore, 27, of Moline. He is being held at the Scott County Jail and is expected to be charged with theft and interference with official acts. Other charges may be pending.

Beine said the arrest, stemming from an incident that began about 6:30 p.m. was a case of strong cooperation and coordination between Bettendorf and Moline police and firefighters.

Beine gave this account of the incident:

Bettendorf police received a call from a convenience store near the bridge that a suspect had attempted to steal liquor and took off on foot.

A witness told police the suspect got in a car headed toward the bridge and gave police the auto's license plate number.

A Bettendorf officer was already on the bridge, attending to a minor auto accident that had slowed traffic to a crawl on the Illinois-bound span when the call came in, so the officer approached the car in question.

The suspect got out of his car and the officer attempted to make an arrest only to have the man refuse to comply and walk away from him while they were in the middle of the bridge where there is an area that is used by official vehicles as a turnaround spot.

Although the officer did not feel he was in danger, he attempted to use a taser to prevent the man from escaping. However, only one of the device's two barbs went in the man's skin, so it failed to incapacitate him.

"Then the guy turned and jumped off the bridge," Beine said.

The officer looked over the railing and saw that the man was swimming, trying to escape. The water below the bridge at that location is only seven-feet deep. At that point, the Bettendorf police and Moline Fire Department launched rescue boats while a Bettendorf officer at nearby Leach Park commandeered a privately owned boat.

The suspect briefly avoided capture by intermittently hiding under water and then coming up for air, but he soon was captured and pulled aboard the fire department boat.

Paramedics checked the man and said he was not injured by the taser attempt, his jump or the time spent in the water.

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Depends if you ever been over this bridge or not, but ... its not the tallest bridge in the area... but I'd guess its probably 30 feet from the deck to the water. Its not something I'd be jumping off. Welcome to Stupid.