Kansas City, Mo. ? A 4-year-old police dog died while chasing down three burglary suspects Wednesday when he apparently fell from a three-story building, police said.

Master Patrol Officer Ronald Jenkins and his dog, Dio, responded to a report that three men were stripping copper inside a vacant building, the Kansas City Police Department said in a news release. Dio ran ahead of Jenkins, police said, and Jenkins later found him dead in the parking lot. He and another officer eventually found the three suspects on the building’s roof.

It appeared that the dog had fallen from the three-story roof, but it wasn’t clear if the dog had overrun the edge or was pushed off by the suspects, police said.

It was the first time a Kansas City police dog has died in the line of duty since Star, a German Shepherd, was shot and killed in 1991, the Police Department said.