Drug user falls from 18th floor to avoid police arrest

A suspected drug user fell to his death from an 18th-floor apartment Sunday afternoon while fleeing from police, local media reported Monday.

Police dispatched officers to the rented apartment after receiving a report early Sunday that two men were using drugs inside, according to a news report on Shanghai Television Station. The apartment was located in a residential compound on Xietu Road in Huangpu district.

When officers knocked on the door to check out the complaint, the two men inside panicked and tried to escape out the window. One man fell from the balcony, but the other managed to climb down to the balcony of the apartment below.

"I heard a noise outside when the first man fell, and saw the other man hanging outside on the external unit of air conditioner," said a woman surnamed Guo, who lived in the downstairs apartment.

The intruder offered Guo a bundle of money, saying he was playing mahjong upstairs when police arrived. He then asked her to let him leave through her apartment.

"I told him that I didn't need his money, and asked him to leave," she told Shanghai Television Station.

Police found no trace of the man on the compound's surveillance camera footage. He remained at large Sunday.

The case remains under investigation.