Police on Thursday arrested two white supremacist gang members -- an Idaho prison inmate and the accomplice who helped him escape -- following an attack on corrections officers at a Boise hospital, and investigators are looking into whether they killed two people while on the run.
Skylar Meade, the escaped inmate, and Nicholas Umphenour, the man who police say shot two Idaho corrections officers early Wednesday to break Meade out of custody, were arrested after a brief car chase Thursday afternoon in Twin Falls, about 130 miles from where they escaped.
Authorities said during a news conference Thursday that they were investigating two homicides, in Clearwater County and Nez Perce County, which borders Washington state. Both victims were men. Police found shackles at the scene of one of the killings and "that's one of the ways we tied them together," Idaho State Police Lt. Colonel Sheldon Kelley said.
Meade, 31, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2017 for shooting at a sheriff's sergeant during a high-speed chase. Umphenour was released from the same prison -- the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise -- in January. The two had at times been housed together, were both members of the Aryan Knights prison gang, and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said.
No shots were fired during the arrest, police said.
The attack on the Idaho Department of Correction officers came just after 2 a.m. Wednesday in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, as they were preparing to return Meade to the prison. He had been brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said.
After the ambush, one officer shot by Umphenour was in critical but stable condition, police said, while the second wounded officer had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. A third corrections officer also suffered non-life-threatening injuries when a responding police officer -- mistakenly believing the shooter was still in the emergency room and seeing an armed person near the entrance -- opened fire.
Correction Director Josh Tewalt said Thursday one guard had been released from the hospital, and the other two are stable and improving.
The department is reviewing its policies and practices in light of the escape, he said.
"We're channeling every resource we have to trying to understand exactly how they went about planning it," Tewalt said.
The Aryan Knights is a gang that formed in the mid-1990s in Idaho's prison system to organize criminal activity for a select group of white people in custody as well as outside prison walls, according to the U.S. attorney's office in the district of Idaho.
In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League counted 75 different white supremacist prison gangs in federal or local facilities in at least 38 states. The ADL said two of the largest such groups, the Aryan Circle and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, had at least 1,500 members.
Recently, Meade had been held in a type of solitary confinement called administrative segregation because officials deemed him a severe security risk, Tewalt said.
Meade had been escorted in the ambulance and at the hospital by a uniformed, unarmed officer wearing a ballistic vest, tailed by two armed officers, Correction officials said.
Security for transporting Meade to the hospital from prison was enhanced because of his violent history, but the department will review their overall policies for transporting inmates to hospitals, Tewalt said.
Information for this article was contributed by Lisa Baumann, Rhonda Schafner and Michael Kunzelman of The Associated Press.
Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, is shown on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Three Idaho corrections officers were shot as a suspect staged a brazen attack to break Skylar Meade, a prison inmate out of the Boise hospital overnight. Two of the officers were shot by the suspect early Wednesday. The third was shot and wounded by a police officer when police mistook the correctional officer for the suspect. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman via AP)
CORRECTS SPELLING OF NAME: This undated photo provided by City of Boise, Id. shows Skylar Meade. Three correctional officers were shot, two by a suspect and one by responding police, during a brazen overnight attack to break Mead, a prison inmate, out of an Idaho hospital, authorities said Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (City of Boise via AP)
This photo provided by Boise Police Dept. shows surveillance video of a vehicle near the scene of a shooting at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, Wednesday, March 20 2024 in Boise, Idaho. Three correctional officers were shot, two by a suspect and one by responding police, during a brazen overnight attack to break Skylar Mead, a prison inmate, out of an Idaho hospital, authorities said Wednesday. (Boise Police Dept. via AP).
This image provided by Boise Police Department shows Nicholas Umphenour, who has been identified by police as the man suspected of shooting corrections officers at a Boise hospital in an overnight attack Wednesday, March 20, 2024, to free an inmate. A warrant with a $2 million bond has been issued for Umphenour's arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said. (Boise Police Department via AP)
This image provided by Boise Police Department shows Nicholas Umphenour, who has been identified by police as the man suspected of shooting corrections officers at a Boise hospital in an overnight attack Wednesday, March 20, 2024, to free an inmate. A warrant with a $2 million bond has been issued for Umphenour's arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, police said. (Boise Police Department via AP)
CORRECTS SPELLING OF NAME: This photo provided by Idaho Department of Corrections shows Skylar Meade. Three correctional officers were shot, two by a suspect and one by responding police, during a brazen overnight attack to break Mead, a prison inmate, out of an Idaho hospital, authorities said Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Idaho Department of Corrections via AP)
This photo provided by Boise Police Dept., shows Skylar Meade. Three correctional officers were shot, two by a suspect and one by responding police, during a brazen overnight attack to break Mead, a prison inmate, out of an Idaho hospital, authorities said Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (Boise Police Dept. via AP)
Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, is shown on Wednesday, March 20, 2024. Three Idaho corrections officers were shot as a suspect staged a brazen attack to break Skylar Meade, a prison inmate out of the Boise hospital overnight. Two of the officers were shot by the suspect early Wednesday. The third was shot and wounded by a police officer when police mistook the correctional officer for the suspect. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman via AP)