(USNewsMag.com) – Police were searching for white supremacist prison inmate Skylar Meade, 31, and his accomplice, Nicholas Umphenour, after the two fled from a hospital in Boise, Idaho, where Umphenour allegedly shot two corrections officers who had been transporting Meade.
According to the Idaho Department of Corrections Director Josh Tewalt, Meade had been taken to the hospital on March 19th after medical staff determined he needed emergency care because he engaged in “self-injurious behavior.” According to police, Umphenour allegedly ambushed and shot the two corrections officers on March 20th in the ambulance bay at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center as the corrections officers were preparing to bring Meade back to the prison.
A total of three officers were wounded during the ambush; two were allegedly shot by Umphenour and one was accidentally shot by responding police who saw an armed person and mistakenly thought it was the shooter. Police said one of the officers allegedly shot by Umphenour is in critical but stable condition, while the other suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The officer who was accidentally shot also suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Following the shooting, the two fled the hospital in a gray 2020 Honda Civic that had Idaho plates.
A warrant for Umphenour’s arrest on charges of aiding and abetting an escape and aggravated battery against law enforcement was issued with a $2 million bond.
The two men were captured on March 21st, and authorities are investigating whether they killed two people while out on the run.
A member of the Aryan Knights gang, Meade was sentenced in 2017 to serve 20 years in prison after he was convicted of shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a high-speed chase. He was being held at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, where, because officials deemed him a severe security risk, he was in a type of solitary confinement known as administrative segregation.
In January, Umphenour, who is also a member of the Aryan Knights gang, was released from the same prison where the two men, at times, had been housed together. Officials say they also had mutual friends in and out of prison.
Copyright 2024, USNewsMag.com
