“There was nobody to stop us and say, hey, are you visiting somebody or something like that? It was like an in-and-out process,” he said.
ST. LOUIS – Octevias Gillespie, 24, is a budding rapper. He wanted to make a music video about his past.
“I had been in the situation where I had been in the hospital before,” Gillespie said. “I wanted to get that part of my life out.”
In April, he went to St. Alexius Hospital in south city to film a music video.
In the video, Gillespie is standing on top of hospital beds, wearing a hospital gown. He is wandering through hallways and sitting at hospital work stations. He said he never looked for hospital records and didn’t try to log onto a hospital computer.
A tipster called 5 On Your Side asking us to look into how it happened. The tipster, who wanted to remain anonymous, was concerned about security.
Gillespie said the entire shoot took less than 10 minutes. And he and his cameraman were able to walk into the front doors of the hospital, past the front desk, without being questioned.
“There was nobody to stop us and say, hey, are you visiting somebody or something like that? It was like an in-and-out process,” he said.
The floor where the video was recorded did not have any patients, but there were several employees there, according to our tipster.
Later in the video, there are images of guns and drugs, but Gillespie said that part of the video was filmed at a home – not at the hospital.
“Honestly, the stuff was props, so I wouldn’t take it outside the house,” he said.
Gillespie said he was only focused on making a cool video. He hadn’t thought about security.
“It is kind of strange that someone could just walk into these facilities,” Gillespie said.
5 On Your Side attempted to contact the St. Alexius CEO Michael Motte five times. He did not return our phone messages or email.
