Video shows officers fall as deck collapses while they try to make an arrest

HUNTSVILLE, Mo. —

Dramatic body camera footage shows nine members of a U.S. Marshals Service task force falling to the ground as a second-story wooden deck they were standing on suddenly collapses.

The video shows the deck collapsing on July 21 as the officers, several holding firearms, stand in a line just outside an apartment door in Huntsville, Missouri. The officers fall straight down within seconds. None of their weapons discharged.

The officers were there to arrest a 26-year-old man for failing to register as a sex offender. The Randolph County Sheriff’s Department said the task force included members of its office, as well as the Moberly Police Department and the North Missouri Drug Task Force. They were serving an arrest warrant in coordination with the U.S. Marshals Service, the sheriff’s department said.

Seven officers were treated and released from the hospital for injuries “consistent with a pretty serious fall,” including broken bones, Steven Lewis, U.S. marshal for the eastern district of Missouri, told KMIZ television in Columbia, Missouri.

The man officers were seeking was taken into custody later that day, U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Abigail Meyer said in an email Wednesday.