LR suspect leaps to death

He leads police on chase, stops on bridge, jumps

Little Rock and North Little Rock police officers and firemen look for a bank robbery suspect after he jumped off the Main Street Bridge into the Arkansas River. Police said the man had led officers on a chase through Little Rock and North Little Rock after  he robbed the U.S. Bank at West Markham and McKinley streets in Little Rock.
Little Rock and North Little Rock police officers and firemen look for a bank robbery suspect after he jumped off the Main Street Bridge into the Arkansas River. Police said the man had led officers on a chase through Little Rock and North Little Rock after he robbed the U.S. Bank at West Markham and McKinley streets in Little Rock.

— A bank-robbery suspect led police on a chase through two cities Tuesday afternoon before jumping to his death in the Arkansas River - leaving a bag of money behind - from the Main Street Bridge between Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper identified the man as 54-year-old Robert Earl Ballard of 2301 Division St., Apartment 301, in North Little Rock. His body was taken to the Pulaski County morgue Tuesday where it awaits transport to the state Crime Laboratory for an autopsy, Camper said.

Little Rock police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said Tuesday that detectives were still trying to determine the circumstances that led Ballard to run from police and jump from the bridge.

A little after noon, a man walked into the US Bank branch at West Markham and North McKinley streets. Witnesses told police that he may have been armed and that he left with cash from a teller.

Police looking for a small black pickup tried to pull over a 1989 Chevrolet S-10 a short time later on Interstate 630 heading east, Davis said.

The truck’s driver kept going, first to Interstate 30 toward North Little Rock, then off at the John F. Kennedy Boulevard exit, she said.

Ar-kansas State Police and North Little Rock police had joined in the pursuit by then, which police said never reached very high speeds.

In North Little Rock officers followed the truck to Pike Avenue and then Riverfront Drive and finally onto East Washington Avenue before the truck turned right onto the Main Street Bridge.

Davis said there were no Little Rock officers waiting on the bridge. She said she did not know why the driver stopped the truck or why he left the money behind.

“He got out, and I was told he walked around the side of the vehicle and then he jumped,” Davis said.

Police, as is their practice, would not say how much money was in the bag.

Police and firefighters swarmed the banks of the Arkansas River.

Their emergency vehicles clogged the River Market parking lots closest to the river in Little Rock. Officers closed the Main Street Bridge and flooded onto the North Little Rock waterfront near the boat ramp east of the USS Razorback submarine.

A suspect in a noon bank robbery was killed when he jumped from the Main Street bridge Tuesday.

Robbery suspect dead after bridge jump

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Even with the bridge closed, the streetcar continued to run, however.

At first, police said, no one could see the man in the brown water. It was a few minutes before someone spotted a man’s body face down in the river between the Junction Bridge and Interstate 30.

North Little Rock firefighters raced out in a speedboat to the man, pulled him on board and motored back to the ramp, as passers-by gathered to watch.

Officers then moved the man’s limp body onto a narrow dock. Firefighters and emergency medical technicians tried to resuscitate him, placing an oxygen mask over his face and loading him onto a stretcher.

One emergency technician gave the man chest compressions as others rolled the stretcher up the ramp to a waiting ambulance.

As the emergency medical technicians loaded the man into the ambulance, one young woman rushed up with her cell phone to take a picture.

Little Rock police officer Robbie Hinman looked at her sternly and yelled.

“Hey!” he said. “Back up!”

“Don’t worry about what I’m doing,” the woman told him. “I don’t mind seeing this.” Information for this article was contributed by Chad Day of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/21/2010

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