Other inmates credited for helping catch escapee who kidnapped officer

POLK COUNTY, Fla. — The inmate who tried to escape by kidnapping a Polk County correctional officer is facing charges in two different counties.

Investigators said David Ross was part of an inmate work crew at a park Wednesday when he got a hold of a sharp object, locked the other inmates in a building, and then took Officer Jeffrey Rexrode hostage.

Authorities said it was the other inmates who saved the day.

“Those four guys, and in fact, the police department would not even have known something was wrong until 5 p.m. this afternoon if those inmates had not taken the action they did,” Bartow Police Chief Joe Hall said.

Hall said Ross drove away in a stolen city truck and headed to Pinellas County with Rexrode.

For 30 minutes no law enforcement agency knew what happened until the other inmates escaped.

“They were able to break the rope that was tying the door and get out. As they came out, there was a young lady sitting in her car a couple hundred feet away having lunch,” said Hall.

The inmates told her to call 911, and that's when deputies and police swarmed the area from Polk to Pinellas County, Hall said.

Police did not warn the public because investigators were tracking the officer's cellphone and didn't want to tip off Ross.

The two-hour escape ended near a grocery store in Pinellas County with no injuries.

“Whenever my grandkids are here and they are out here working I take them in the house," said resident Kathy Ebrahim, who lives across from the park.

Ebrahim said she wonders why Rexrode wasn't armed, and what the Department of Corrections will do in the future to keep her family safe.

Ross was set to be released in February 2019. He was in prison for several felony convictions that included battery and fraud.

Cox Media Group