Brawl Suspect Dies in Struggle With Police

A man suspected in both a brawl and an attempted rape died after struggling with police officers, authorities said.

Officers were responding to a call at 6 p.m. Friday about a man fighting with several people in an apartment complex when a second call came in about a possible attack on a woman nearby, Lt. Ray Sigwalt said.

The descriptions of each suspect were the same, he said.

A witness to the fight identified a 6-foot-4 man walking nearby as the suspect, and police tried to detain him, Sigwalt said. Two more officers arrived and tried to help.

“Four of them had to take him to the ground,” Sigwalt said. “When he stopped breathing, they unhandcuffed him and tried to resuscitate him.”

The man was declared dead at a hospital. His identity was withheld pending notification of relatives. Sigwalt said the man appeared to have been under the influence of drugs.

“He looked wild,” said Teresa Jones, who lives near the scene of the struggle. “He was fighting them, then he was very still. The police rolled him over and started CPR.”

Police did not plan to release the names of the officers involved.

It also was not immediately clear whether the man stopped was, in fact, the same person callers reported to police, authorities said.