3 Idaho prison guards shot during escape attack at Boise hospital
Three corrections officers were shot, including one with critical injuries, during a prisoner escape at a Boise hospital early Wednesday morning.
An escaped prisoner and accomplice in the escape and shootings are still at large, according to Boise police.
The attack on Idaho Department of Correction staffers occurred at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise early Wednesday morning.
Department of Corrections officers were transporting prisoner Skylar Meade, 31, to the hospital for medical treatment at 2:15 a.m. when an unknown suspect attacked and fired at the officers in the ambulance bay as they were preparing, shooting two of them, the Boise Police Department said in a news release. One officer is in “critical but stable condition” and the other has “serious but non-life-threatening injuries,” police said.
When Boise police “responded to the hospital to reports of an active shooter,” one Boise officer fired his gun at an “armed individual near the entrance,” who turned out to be one of the Department of Corrections employees, police said. By the time police arrived, the two suspects already had fled, according to the police agency. The third corrections employee shot by police “was not seriously injured and is receiving treatment for his injuries,” police said. Law enforcement continues to search for the suspects, who are both “armed and dangerous” and traveling in a gray four-door sedan, possibly a Honda Civic with Idaho license plates, police said. Idaho State Police has issued a Blue Alert for Meade.
“This brazen, violent, and apparently coordinated attack on Idaho Department of Correction personnel, to facilitate an escape of a dangerous inmate, was carried out right in front of the Emergency Department, where people come for medical help, often in the direst circumstances,” said Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar in the release.
Meade is listed as a prisoner at Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, which is just outside Boise.
The hospital was placed on temporary lockdown while police secured the scene but has since resumed normal operations, according to police. Saint Al’s said it has increased security on campus and that all entrances to the hospital “will be closed and monitored” until further notice. “All patients and staff are safe, the medical center campus is safe and secure,” Saint Al’s said in the news release.
Meade has been found guilty of several crimes in Twin Falls County. Court records showed he has been in prison since 2016 and was set for release in 2036. Police said he has been serving time for aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer with a firearm enhancement. He also has prior convictions for felony possession of a controlled substance, grand theft and introduction of contraband into a correctional facility, according to police.
Idaho State Police described Meade as a 5-foot-6 white man with brown hair and hazel eyes, with tattoos of a “D” on his right arm, a clown or skull face across his chest and “product of my environment” across his collarbone. Police asked anyone with information to call Ada County Dispatch at (208) 377-6790. Boise police and the Department of Corrections did not respond to the Idaho Statesman’s questions. Saint Al’s declined to provide additional information.