CLEVELAND — A man charged for allegedly shooting his boss the day after he was fired continues to baffle law enforcement, most recently pulling a Houdini-inspired feat where he escaped from a moving police car.
Andre Stanton, 28, is accused of shooting his 29-year-old boss multiple times last week at MPC Plating Factory on East 163rd Street in Cleveland where he used to work.
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Stanton has proved quite the slippery suspect.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Marshals Service located him in Bedford Heights in an apartment building. Stanton vaulted off a fifth-floor balcony and somersaulted to the balcony below. For his next trick, he performed a contortionist act and squeezed into a tiny utility closet.
Authorities later found him hiding and arrested him.
Later that day, Cleveland police officers met up with the U.S. Marshals Service to take Stanton off their hands. Stanton was placed in handcuffs with his hands behind his back and put in a Cleveland police car, according to a police report.
On the way to the Cuyahoga County Jail, the officer driving the patrol car noticed the door ajar light was illuminated, the report states. Officers pulled over, inspected the door and found it open just a crack. After securing the door, the officers continued on their way with Stanton in tow.
When police were exiting onto East 9th Street from Ontario Street, the light came one once again, but this time Stanton had jumped out of the car. The report states that officers saw that Stanton had somehow managed to have “maneuvered his cuffs to the front of his body."
A second set of cuffs kept Stanton from pulling off his vanishing act. Stanton, who was also wearing leg restraints, stumbled and fell while fleeing from the police car, the report states. The officers grabbed him and took him back into custody.
Police say Stanton escaped from the car by taking the rear door panel apart, revealing a hole and then putting his hand inside where he tugged on the wire connected to the door release.
In addition to Stanton’s original charges of attempted murder and carrying a concealed weapon, he is now facing an additional charge of escape, a second-degree felony.
Stanton has a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 17 in Cleveland Municipal Court.
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