Idaho police search for escaped inmate and accomplice after ambush at hospital : NPR

Idaho police search for escaped inmate and accomplice after ambush at hospital : NPR

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A police automobile is parked exterior Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Heart in Boise, Idaho, on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.

Sarah A. Miller/AP


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Sarah A. Miller/AP


A police automobile is parked exterior Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Heart in Boise, Idaho, on Wednesday, March 20, 2024.

Sarah A. Miller/AP

A white supremacist Idaho jail gang member and an confederate remained on the free Wednesday after the confederate staged a brazen in a single day assault to free the inmate as he was being transported from a Boise hospital, police mentioned.

Police recognized the person suspected of taking pictures two corrections officers in the course of the ambush as Nicholas Umphenour. A warrant with a $2 million bond has been issued for his arrest on two fees of aggravated battery towards legislation enforcement and one cost of aiding and abetting an escape, police mentioned.

Police mentioned the search continues for Umphenour and escaped inmate Skylar Meade, who fled the hospital early Wednesday in a grey 2020 Honda Civic with Idaho plates. It isn’t recognized the place they’re or the place they’re headed, police mentioned.

Three corrections officers had been shot and wounded — two allegedly by Umphenour and one by responding police — in the course of the assault within the ambulance bay at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Heart.

Officers described Meade, 31, as a white supremacist gang member. Meade was sentenced to twenty years in 2017 for taking pictures at a sheriff’s sergeant throughout a high-speed chase.

The assault occurred at 2:15 a.m. as Idaho Division of Correction officers ready to carry Meade again to jail. Division Director Josh Tewalt mentioned throughout a information convention Wednesday afternoon that Meade was taken to the hospital at 9:35 p.m. Tuesday after he engaged in “self-injurious habits” and medical employees decided he wanted emergency care.

One officer shot by the suspect was in crucial however secure situation, police mentioned, whereas the second wounded officer had critical however non-life-threatening accidents. The third injured corrections officer additionally sustained non-life-threatening accidents when a responding officer — incorrectly believing the shooter was nonetheless within the emergency room and seeing an armed individual close to the doorway — opened hearth.

“This brazen, violent, and apparently coordinated assault on Idaho Division of Corrections personnel, to facilitate an escape of a harmful inmate, was carried out proper in entrance of the Emergency Division, the place folks come for medical assist, typically within the direst circumstances,” Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar mentioned in a written assertion.

Umphenour, 5-foot-11 and 160 kilos, has brown hair and hazel eyes, police mentioned. Detectives have confirmed that he’s an affiliate of Meade, police mentioned. Makes an attempt by The Related Press to achieve Umphenour via social media had been unsuccessful.

Meade, 5-foot-6 and 150 kilos, has face tattoos with the numbers 1 and 11 — for A and Ok, the primary and eleventh letters of the alphabet, representing the Aryan Knights gang he affiliated with, Tewalt mentioned. Photographs launched by police additionally confirmed an A and Ok tattooed on his stomach.

The Aryan Knights shaped within the mid-Nineteen Nineties within the Idaho jail system to prepare prison exercise for a choose group of white folks in custody, in response to the U.S. legal professional’s workplace within the district of Idaho.

This photograph supplied by Idaho Division of Corrections exhibits Skylar Meade.

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This photograph supplied by Idaho Division of Corrections exhibits Skylar Meade.

AP

Meade had been held in a kind of solitary confinement referred to as administrative segregation at Idaho Most Safety Establishment in Kuna, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) south of Boise, as a result of officers deemed him a extreme safety danger, Tewalt mentioned.

Tewalt mentioned earlier within the day that Meade had been escorted within the ambulance and on the hospital by two uniformed, unarmed officers carrying ballistic vests, tailed by armed employees. Later within the day Correction Division spokesperson Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic mentioned in an e mail that officers had confirmed that one officer had been within the ambulance with Meade and two officers had been in an escort automobile.

“To the perfect of our data, Meade was in restraints whereas being escorted out and in of the hospital,” Kuzeta-Cerimagic mentioned. She did not specify whether or not the restraints had been handcuffs, shackles or one other sort of restraint however mentioned transport procedures are depending on the custody stage of the individual being transported.

Authorities additionally didn’t say if different safety measures had been in place when Meade was leaving the hospital.

The assault got here amid a wave of gun violence at hospitals and medical facilities, which have struggled to adapt to the threats.

A Saint Alphonsus spokesperson mentioned the taking pictures occurred within the ambulance bay by its emergency division.

“All sufferers and employees are secure, the medical middle campus is secure and safe, and has resumed regular operations. The Emergency Division itself is presently below momentary lockdown whereas the Boise Police Division completes the investigation,” Leticia Ramirez mentioned Wednesday morning in an announcement.

She mentioned as an added precaution, “now we have elevated safety on campus, all entrances to the hospital shall be closed” and monitored by hospital safety till additional discover.

Ramirez declined to remark when requested about Meade, deferring to the police division.

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