An alleged squatter’s paradise inside a Denver mall became a prison Tuesday night, when police say a man hiding in the ceiling fell, tripped a water main that then flooded a restaurant and hotel lobby below, and got stuck inside a wall.

Police showed up around 11 p.m. to reports of a man falling through the ceiling, reports 9News.com, but alas, the guy was nowhere to be found.

A bit later, cops saw the man walking through scaffolding above a restaurant, at which point he somehow tripped the water main and started a huge flood in the businesses below.

He eluded the police yet again, leading them to hunt around above the restaurant and discover he’d been living above the place for some time. A few hours later, officers heard moaning from the wall near the front of the restaurant, and espied the man’s feet sticking out at the bottom. He’d apparently fallen 20 feet and was stuck.

Firefighters had to cut him out of the wall.

“I have not seen a call like this ever,” a Denver police rep said.

The man is now facing charges for flooding the restaurant.

Man freed after being trapped in Denver restaurant wall [9News.com]

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