Fugitive captured after sliding down 17-story trash chute

DENVER - A fugitive was captured and cuffed after he went down 17 stories in a trash chute while trying to escape from police, reports CBS Denver.

Donnie Griffin was wanted out of Texas on bank fraud charges when he escaped federal custody. Authorities reportedly found items inside his apartment in Denver that may get him into more trouble in Colorado.

According to the station, the U.S. Marshals Office found several law enforcement badges in Griffin’s apartment. They haven’t said what he was doing with those badges but the items are part of the investigation after he tried to escape from the 20th floor of a building in downtown Denver.

“We’re going to have to take a look and see whether or not he was impersonating law enforcement officers and that may be one of the reasons why he took such efforts to elude arrest this afternoon,” Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Kenneth Deal said Wednesday. 

Marhals said Griffin escaped from federal custody in Texas last year. Authorities reportedly tracked him to his apartment in downtown Denver. But he didn’t go easily.

“As we breached the door we noticed that the individual was scaling from his balcony on a sheet to the 19th floor, the floor below,” said Deal.

Officers eventually tracked Griffin to the 17th floor where the only place he had left to go was down - down the trash chute, all the way to the first floor.

“He must have been desperate to get the heck out of the building, that trash chute is terrible,” Jeff Dams, who lives in the building, told CBS Denver.

Griffin was taken to the hospital where he was treated for injuries he sustained while tumbling down the chute.