Boise police identify hospital shooting suspect who helped Idaho prisoner escape
This story was updated 5 p.m. March 21 after a news conference Thursday, when police announced both suspects were in custody. Find the latest story here.
The Boise Police Department has identified the man suspected of shooting two Idaho Department of Correction officers and helping an Idaho prisoner escape custody in a coordinated ambush at a hospital.
Nicholas Umphenour, 28, aided in the planned attack to free 31-year-old Skylar Meade, an “associate,” from custody after he was brought to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in the Boise Bench early Wednesday, according to a news release from the Police Department. Officers obtained a $2 million warrant for Umphenour’s arrest on two charges of aggravated battery against law enforcement and one charge of aiding and abetting an escape, the release said.
Officers from the state’s correction department were about to bring Meade back to prison from the hospital at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, police said, when Umphenour attacked and fired a gun at IDOC officers in the ambulance bay of the Saint Alphonsus hospital, the Idaho Statesman reported. Police said Meade and Umphenous fled in a vehicle before law enforcement arrived.
Three officers, including one shot by police, were treated for injuries but remained in stable condition, IDOC and police said.
“We believe that this was a coordinated attack and ambush on the Department of Correction officers and certainly a planned endeavor to free (Meade) from custody,” Boise Police Chief Winegar said at a news conference Wednesday.
Police described Umphenour as roughly 5 feet 11 inches, weighs 160 pounds and has brown hair and hazel eyes. He was incarcerated in 2016 on a felony burglary charge and again in 2019 after he pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon and grand theft by receiving, possessing or disposing of stolen property, online court records showed. It’s unclear when he was released from prison.
Police said Meade is a 5-foot-6 white man with brown hair and hazel eyes, with several tattoos across his chest and on his face, including some associated with the Aryan Knights, a white supremacist prison gang. Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights, police said. Idaho State Police on Wednesday morning issued a Blue Alert for Meade, an alert used for suspects who injured law enforcement in the line of duty and is believed to be a public threat. Both suspects are now in custody, police said.
Boise police said they were able to identify the vehicle the men escaped in as a gray 2020 Honda Civic with license plate number 2TDF43U. Police said they were considered “armed and dangerous.”
