Man Busts Out of Jail Using Homemade Nunchucks

Lorenzo Pollard really, really wanted to get out of jail. The inmate, 31, escaped a medium-security facility in St. Louis after fighting off some dozen guards with home-made nunchucks fashioned from bedsheets and a chair, according to cops. Pollard used the weapon to smash through glass blocks and then scaled two razor- and barbed-wire fences to make his escape, reports the St. Louis Dispatch. Pollard, who had been in the jail since May on charges of theft, trespassing, property damage, and resisting arrest, was recaptured without incident two nights later.

Several hours before Pollard's escape, the chief of the city's corrections system was placed on forced leave because of major problems with the system, including several other less spectacular escapes. "The current system in the jails is unacceptable," the mayor said. "Keeping the prisoners inside the jails is the barest minimum requirement, and it has not been met." (More prisons stories.)