Police chasing a Staten Island shoplifter were shocked when he jumped off the Goethals Bridge and seemed to survive the 200 foot fall. Cops tried to stop the suspect, Darin Hickman, in Milburn, New Jersey because they believed he stole a $2,500 Louis Vutton bag from the Short Hills Mall. But Hickman sped off in his Mitsubishi Diamante, leading police in hot pursuit to the New Jersey turnpike, where they decided to follow him, but with lights and sirens off. When Hickman got to the Goethals, he rammed into a Port Authority police vehicle and his car burst into flames. That's when he bolted toward the edge of the bridge.
"Suddenly, he makes a hard left—and falls 200 feet!" one cop on the scene told the Post. "I still, to this moment, can't believe what I saw. This mope threw himself off a bridge, and has no external injuries and seems to be fine." When cops and firefighters reached Hickman in the marsh below, all he wanted to know was, "How's my car?," the Post reports.
"The initial reports that we had were that it looked like he was in fairly decent shape," State Police spokesman Sgt. Stephen Jones tells the Staten Island Advance. But hours later, Hickman, who had done three stints in federal prison, died at University Hospital in Newark.
