An accomplice staged a brazen attack to break a prison inmate out of a Boise hospital overnight, shooting and seriously wounded two Idaho corrections officers, police said Wednesday. A third was also shot and wounded when arriving police mistook the officer for the suspect and opened fire.
Police throughout the region were looking for the suspect and the escaped inmate, Skylar Meade, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 shooting at a sheriff's sergeant during a high-speed chase. They fled in a gray four-door sedan, possibly a Honda Civic, with Idaho plates.
The attack occurred at 2:15 am after Idaho Department of Corrections officers had transported Meade to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center for treatment.
One officer shot by the suspect was in critical but stable condition, police said, while the second officer shot had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The third injured corrections officer also sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
"This brazen, violent, and apparently coordinated attack on Idaho Department of Corrections 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," Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar said in a written statement.
Earlier, the hospital had been on temporary lockdown, police said.
A hospital spokesperson said the shooting happened in the ambulance bay by its emergency department.
"All patients and staff are safe, the medical center campus is safe and secure, and has resumed normal operations. The Emergency Department itself is currently under temporary lockdown while the Boise Police Department completes the investigation," Leticia Ramirez said Wednesday morning in a statement.
She said as an added precaution, "we have increased security on campus, all entrances to the hospital will be closed" and monitored by hospital security until further notice.
Ramirez declined to comment when asked about Meade, deferring to the police department.
