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Officer Falls 20 Feet During Struggle With Fleeing Suspect

MIDDLETOWN — A Middletown police officer was injured around 6:20 p.m. Tuesday after falling 20 feet during a struggle with a fleeing suspect.

Officer David Kirsch was flown to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton with injuries that were described as not life-threatening. As of 7:30 a.m. today, the hospital said there was no listing for him, and believed he had been discharged.

Kirsch, 40, was injured after pursuing Anthony Stevens, 29, of Middletown who jumped out of a vehicle during a disturbance and ran up the Reinartz Boulevard overpass, according to police. Kirsch struggled with Stevens when both dropped 20 feet and landed on the grass and concrete curb.

Stevens was transported to Atrium Medical Center, but officials said as of 7 a.m. today there was no listing for him as a patient. He also had not yet been booked Middletown City Jail, according to police.

A warrant for Stevens’ arrest was issued Aug. 27 through Butler County Common Pleas Court for a probation violation, court records show. Stevens was arrested in July 2008 in Middletown on arson and receiving stolen property charges. In November 2008 he pleaded guilty to reduced charges of criminal mischief and receiving stolen property and was sentenced to probation by Common Pleas Judge Patricia Oney.

In January 2007, Kirsch fatally struck pedestrian Donald “Pops” McCray with his cruiser while responding to a call for an officer down at the former Coconutz night club on Cincinnati-Dayton Road. Kirsch, now a 13-year veteran of the Middletown police force and a past president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, was suspended for 15 days without pay for violating the department’s emergency response policy at the time of the accident.