Shoplifting Suspect Flees Police; Jumps Off Bridge

A shoplifting suspect that Millburn police tried to question at Short Hills Mall on Saturday fled police and eventually jumped off the Goethals Bridge Saturday night, later dying of injuries sustained in the fall.

Millburn police chased Darin Hickman, 46, of Staten Island, as far as Springfield when state police took over the pursuit, said Capt. Jim Miller, Millburn Police Public Information Officer.

"We did not have any part of the events that occured near or the bridge," Miller said. "I have read some reports that make it sound like we did, but our part of the pursuit ended at 24 Eastbound near Interstate 78 at about the Springfield border."

State police chased Hickman until the road to the bridge, where Hickman crashed his car into a Port Authority vehicle then got out and tried to elude police by jumping over the railing of the bridge “not realizing how high up he was,” a spokesman for the Port Authority told Patch. Hickman initially survived the fall, but later died at University Hospital in Newark, he said.

The Staten Island Live website reports that Hickman had a lengthy criminal record and that he jumped off the bridge over marshland.