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Mo. inmate overpowers officer, escapes from hospital

By Kim Bell
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. CHARLES, Mo. — An inmate escaped from St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles late Tuesday night by overpowering a guard after they both got zapped and entangled in the wires of the guard’s stun gun.

Authorities today are still searching for the escapee -- identified as David M. Rocklage, 25, of St. Peters, who is charged with distributing cocaine.

Five police agencies have joined the search effort.

This isn’t Rocklage’s first escape.

On June 6, 2005, Rocklage escaped from police in St. Louis city after he was caught with heroin and cocaine. He was captured within hours, said Angie Morefield, public information officer for the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Rocklage’s latest brush with police began Saturday when he was arrested in Troy, Mo., for distribution of cocaine. He was being held on $75,000 bond at the Lincoln County Jail. While in jail, he complained of chest pain and was taken to St. Joseph Health Center. Lt. Andy Binder of the Lincoln County sheriff’s office said he’s not sure if Rocklage’s health complaint was real or a ruse.

“He’s probably a cocaine user, so having chest pains as a cocaine user is not uncommon,” Binder said.

Police say Rocklage began his escape about 9 p.m. Tuesday. At the hospital, he was being watched by a guard, or technically a “corrections officer” employed by the Lincoln County sheriff’s office. An inmate at the hospital normally would have his feet and arms shackled. But the guard took off the arm shackles so Rocklage could eat dinner and shackled his legs to the hospital bed, Binder said.

The guard was sitting in the hallway, outside the inmate’s hospital room, while Rocklage ate. The guard then “hears a bang and thinks it came from the elevator down the hall,” Binder said. The bang actually had something to do with Rocklage’s escape. He somehow managed to get the shackles off the bed rail. Rocklage locked himself in the bathroom.

As the hospital staffers came to help the guard unlock the bathroom door, Rocklage crawled through the ceiling of the bathroom. He dropped through ceiling tiles into a patient’s room -- six rooms down the hall from where he began.

The guard saw Rocklage run into the hall toward an exit. The guard intercepted him, and they scuffled there. The guard fired his Taser from point-blank range. Because it was so close, the Taser’s darts didn’t have time to move past the Taser’s “blast door.”

“The 21 feet of wire got tangled up,” Binder said, “and it shocked both of them. It was all over both of them.”

Rocklage then tried to get the guard’s handgun.

“The corrections officer was in a fight for his life at that point,” Binder said.

Rocklage never did get the guard’s handgun.

They scuffled some more, crashing through a stairwell door. Rocklage then ran out of the hospital’s main entrance -- with the leg shackle still attached.

Rocklage is a light-skinned black man, about 5-foot-5 and 155 pounds. He has tattoos on his chest, back and neck. Binder said there have been no sightings of Rocklage since his escape. Anyone with information should call the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department at 636-528-6100.

Rocklage has served prison time for heroin and cocaine possession.

In December 2005, Rocklage was sentenced to three years in prison for two counts of possession of heroin, one count of possession of cocaine and escape from custody. About five months later, he was released from prison and put on probation. Three weeks after that, on April 26, 2006, Rocklage was sentenced to five years in prison for possession of a controlled substance. His probation was revoked and he was sent back to prison on Aug. 8, 2007. He was paroled on July 24, 2008.

Binder said he was unaware of Rocklage’s conviction for escaping St. Louis police custody in 2005.

Copyright 2009 St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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