[NYT] A man trying to evade a parole officer jumped from the eighth floor of a building in a Manhattan housing complex on Friday, sustaining only a broken ankle in the fall, the police said.At around 3 p.m., the man, whose name was not immediately released, jumped from a window at the Lincoln Houses development on Park Avenue in Harlem, opposite the elevated Metro-North Railroad tracks. He fell onto a grassy patch set behind iron gates, and was handcuffed by police as he lay on the ground, according to witnesses who were at the complex on Friday.
Several people said they thought the man was new to the complex.
"I guess he thought he could fly," said a 60-year-old woman who provided only her given name, Dee. "He was on the ground and handcuffed, looking up."
The man was taken to NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, where he was in stable condition, the police said.
Jumping out of tall buildings to evade the police has been tried before, including once in the same Harlem complex more than a decade ago. A 21-year-old man, Tyrell Harris, jumped out a 14th-story window at the Lincoln Houses in 2005 after a gun battle with the police. He survived the impact, but died at St. Luke’s Hospital.