By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — An ex-convict has been given two concurrent 11-year prison terms for causing a crash that seriously injured one of his passengers while he was attempting to elude Stillwater police and running a roadblock at 56th and Perkins Road — while driving under suspension.
Gary James Rose Jr., 29, of Stillwater, accepted a plea bargain last week in which he was given another concurrent 11-year prison term for possessing a stolen vehicle and a concurrent one-year jail term for unauthorized use of a credit card, both in 2020 in Logan County.
Rose also was given a concurrent six-month jail term for possessing a stolen credit card and ordered to pay $1,280 in restitution in a 2020 Payne County misdemeanor case.
Rose pleaded guilty to all of his charges last week before District Judge Phillip Corley, who sentenced him in accordance with a plea agreement with the prosecution.
Rose had been arrested at 7:25 pm on Oct. 9, 2020, after losing control of his vehicle “as it attempted to maneuver through the roadblock causing it to lose control and sideswipe an SUV and go horizontal across the southbound lane of travel before striking a stock trailer being pulled by a pickup, which had pulled off to the shoulder,” Stillwater Police Detective Brett Moore wrote in an affidavit.
When two female passengers were removed from the vehicle, the one in the front seat “was crying hysterically and screaming in pain,” the affidavit said.
Both passengers were taken by ambulance to the Stillwater Medical Center where the front-seat passenger was admitted with a broken arm and other injuries, the affidavit said. The occupants of the two vehicles that Rose had hit were not injured, the affidavit said.
During a chase that began six minutes earlier with an attempted traffic stop, an unidentified male jumped out of the vehicle that ran stop signs and traffic lights, the affidavit said.
“As we approached 44th and Perkins, the vehicle attempted to turn westbound; however, due to speeds in the 90s (it) was unable to maneuver the turn causing the vehicle to go off road and back onto Perkins Road,” where a roadblock had been set up at 56th by Payne County Sheriff’s Deputy Jacob Secrest, the affidavit said.
“Deputy Secrest had positioned his vehicle in the northbound lanes and was out of his vehicle directing traffic. I observed Deputy Secrest throw his hand up directing the suspect vehicle to stop; however, the vehicle continued through the middle of the lanes,” before losing control, the Stillwater detective wrote in his affidavit.
Rose had gotten out of the Payne County Jail about six months earlier after serving seven months on a misdemeanor forgery charge from 2019, court records show.
Six years ago, Rose had been sent to prison from Payne County to the Bill Johnson Drug Offender Work Camp on multiple felonies occurring between 2012 and 2015 consisting of drug possession, second-degree burglary, shoplifting, carrying contraband into jail, possessing stolen property, possessing a taken credit card, and committing a pattern of crimes, state Department of Corrections records show. Rose was apparently released from prison in 2019.
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