Attorney Leaps From Hospital Ledge

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ An attorney accused of robbing a pharmacy jumped head first from his fifth-floor hospital room Thursday, landing on the roof of a nearby two-story building. <br/><br/>Robert Behlen

Thursday, September 27th 2007, 7:56 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ An attorney accused of robbing a pharmacy jumped head first from his fifth-floor hospital room Thursday, landing on the roof of a nearby two-story building.

Robert Behlen ``vaulted himself'' through a narrow window in his room and screamed as members of a sheriff's office tactical team on tethers tried to reach him from an outdoor ledge, Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel said.

His condition was not immediately known, but Whetsel said ``he's verbal and he's conscious.'' Paramedics and first responders rushed him to the hospital's trauma unit for examination and treatment of any injuries from the fall, officials said.

``Obviously, he was intent on trying to commit suicide,'' Whetsel said. ``We were very hopeful to a different resolution.''

Behlen, 50, barricaded himself about 1 p.m. Thursday in a room in the Presbyterian Tower of the University of Oklahoma Medical Center, where he was sent after stabbing himself in the neck with a pencil at the Oklahoma County Jail around 4 a.m., Whetsel said.

The sheriff said Behlen was on suicide watch and a sheriff's deputy was stationed in his room but that Behlen barricaded his door with a couch when he was left alone for a few seconds.

Behlen managed to pry open his room's window and walked along the ledge for a while before re-entering the room. Whetsel said a team of negotiators as well as friends and family members attempted to talk Behlen into surrendering.

Behlen, barefoot and dressed in a white hospital gown, jumped at 4:47 p.m. as two members of the sheriff's office's tactical team stepped onto the ledge from an adjacent room and carefully moved to the window of Behlen's room.

``When he saw them, he just flew over the top,'' Whetsel said. The sheriff said it appeared that sheriff's deputies used a Taser, a nonlethal device used to stun suspects, in an attempt to subdue Behlen as he leaped from the window.

The incident left some eyewitnesses shaken. A woman who watched Behlen fall wept and shook her head in disbelief as hospital officials attempted to console her.

Officials said the extent of Behlen's injuries will determine whether he is kept at the hospital or moved to some other facility.

Behlen faces federal counts of obstructing interstate commerce by robbery and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence for the September 18 robbery of Barrett Drug Center in Edmond.

Behlen allegedly entered the store three times, demanded the painkiller, oxycodone, and other prescription drugs before herding employees into a back room at gunpoint, according to court documents.

He swallowed as many as a dozen pain pills before leaving with about $7,000 worth of prescription medication, according to witnesses quoted in the documents.

Officers also used a Taser gun to subdue Behlen after he allegedly refused to exit the vehicle at his home, according to a police officer's affidavit. There was an unloaded .22-caliber handgun on the seat beside him.